JOEL TELLIER
ARTS AND CULTURE | 2022
A chromatic system for a former VICE Creative Director whose work refuses a single category.
Introduction
Joel Tellier is a Creative Director whose practice crosses branding, art direction, motion, and experiential design with genuine range and restlessness. This wasn't a project about finding things to show — Joel's output is vast and consistently strong. The challenge was building a portfolio architecture that could hold the full scope of what he does without flattening it into a highlight reel, and without imposing an order that would misrepresent how his mind actually works. Portfolio and website design at this level is less graphic design than it is curatorial problem-solving.
Joel Tellier is a Creative Director whose practice crosses branding, art direction, motion, and experiential design with genuine range and restlessness. This wasn't a project about finding things to show — Joel's output is vast and consistently strong. The challenge was building a portfolio architecture that could hold the full scope of what he does without flattening it into a highlight reel, and without imposing an order that would misrepresent how his mind actually works. Portfolio and website design at this level is less graphic design than it is curatorial problem-solving.
Services
Brand Identity and Direction
Curation
Web Build
Web Design
Brand Identity and Direction
Curation
Web Build
Web Design
The Challenge
A portfolio that tries to be everything risks feeling like nothing. Joel's work resists easy categorisation, which is a genuine strength but also a real structural problem. The solution needed to organise without prescribing — to give visitors a way in without telling them where to arrive. Most portfolio websites solve this problem by narrowing: they choose a lane and stay in it. That wasn't an option here, and finding a system that could hold genuine breadth without losing coherence required thinking about navigation as an experience rather than a utility.
The Solution
A chromatic logic runs through the site: red for Branding, blue for Art Direction, yellow for Motion. Where work occupied a liminal space — Branding + Motion coded in orange, for instance — the sub-system extended naturally from the same logic, creating orientation without hierarchy. Visitors navigate by instinct as much as intention, led by colour rather than category.
Randomised navigation means the portfolio actively rewards return visits — something different surfaces each time, reflecting the restlessness that defines Joel's practice and refusing the fixed hierarchy that most creative portfolio design defaults to. The result is a website that functions less like a CV and more like a mind: structured enough to be navigable, open enough to surprise. Joel was a generous collaborator throughout, offering real creative freedom. The main task was simply doing justice to the scale and quality of what he has made.
A portfolio that tries to be everything risks feeling like nothing. Joel's work resists easy categorisation, which is a genuine strength but also a real structural problem. The solution needed to organise without prescribing — to give visitors a way in without telling them where to arrive. Most portfolio websites solve this problem by narrowing: they choose a lane and stay in it. That wasn't an option here, and finding a system that could hold genuine breadth without losing coherence required thinking about navigation as an experience rather than a utility.
The Solution
A chromatic logic runs through the site: red for Branding, blue for Art Direction, yellow for Motion. Where work occupied a liminal space — Branding + Motion coded in orange, for instance — the sub-system extended naturally from the same logic, creating orientation without hierarchy. Visitors navigate by instinct as much as intention, led by colour rather than category.
Randomised navigation means the portfolio actively rewards return visits — something different surfaces each time, reflecting the restlessness that defines Joel's practice and refusing the fixed hierarchy that most creative portfolio design defaults to. The result is a website that functions less like a CV and more like a mind: structured enough to be navigable, open enough to surprise. Joel was a generous collaborator throughout, offering real creative freedom. The main task was simply doing justice to the scale and quality of what he has made.
