Have you ever seen… a DJ in white coat who creates web sites?
It's not an episode (yet) of the French web series in which Alain Chabat gives voice, but after all, it's up to superhuit team to create it!
My name is Bond, James Bo… err I mean, my name is Pierre, I started working in our Lausanne-based agency exactly 6 months ago, and now is the time to tell you a bit more about me.
Why the white coat, first? Because before sitting in front of a computer and letting my finger gently slam on the keyboard 8 hours a day, I used to play with pipettes, Petri dishes and cell incubators. It means that, before being a full time web developer, I was a scientist in the famous Pasteur Institute, in Lille, France, in the building where Louis Pasteur himself developed the first vaccines more than a century ago. By the way, you should definitely visit the Pasteur museum located inside the Institute, if you ever have the chance to visit the wonderful, cosmopolitan city of Lille, in the North of France. There I worked on an anti-cancer virus for 10+ years.
"A virus…?! Against cancer ?!" I can already imagine you getting shocked, protesting, smiling, asking question about this somewhat crazy idea… but it's definitely a reality. Twenty years ago, you'd be considered crazy diving head first into this topic… but the first clinical trials ended up a few years ago and saved the life of some people while having almost zero side effect — which is awesome, considering how age-old chemotherapy can be devastating for the patient. Beyond the rising hopes patients can expect from this, that new generation of anti-cancer therapy will also become a market worth of several dozens of billions of dollars up to 2025 and big pharma started getting into it.
When dreams come true
Imagine something, build a plan to make it real, try, fail, think again, start again, and finally win. This could be a summary of my life, which, from a certain point of view, looks like a succession of Gaussian curves, these figures that look like roller coasters. Life is full of ups and downs and eventually led me from my flat, native country to the Swiss mountains.
In 2006, I had to learn a new technique for my research in the lab, and I had first to find a place to learn it. Being half French, half Swiss, from a Swiss-born father and a French mother, I always had a close relationship with Switzerland and thus it naturally came to my mind to look for learning opportunities there — I ended up following a training in Geneva. At that time, I knew Switzerland mostly through Graubünden, the Swiss most eastern canton now famous in the whole Europe because of the dried beef meat you can eat with raclette cheese. I discovered "the Swiss riviera" and felt in love with it. I also met there some true friends, some of them living in Lausanne.
"2001, Space Odyssey". "2007, First Contact with Lausanne". "2017", "First Job as a Web Developer in Lausanne". The two last titles are not books from Arthur C. Clarke or movies from Stanley Kubrick, but important milestones to me.
When my dream to live and work in Lausanne… became reality.
When my dream to spend my days creating websites and mobile applications… became reality.
Well, imagine something, build a plan to make it a reality, try, fail, think again, start again, and then finally win! I think you now get the point, the pattern that is slowing drawing before your eyes… and hey, don't you think it has an 8-shape? (who said, a superhuit-shape? ;) )
I first made a name in tech by writing articles for AppStorm, the blog network from Envato. And a few years later, after having kickstarted my career shift thanks to WeLoveDevs, I am a front end web dev — and now, thanks to Felipe, you all know what it is. To sum up, my daily job is to transform the visual creations of our designers team into lines of code that, once interpreted by your favorite web browser, result into wonderful, colorful, interactive and accessible websites.
And do you know what's the funniest part in all of that? We are building websites for our clients by following the principles of "atomic web design"… so I'm now creating "atoms", "molecules" and "organisms" with my computer after having studied them in my lab for so many years. I told you: my life has come full circle.
The part where we talk about plastic spinning circles, pencils and savory cakes
When I'm not crossing the Lake Leman aboard a 'Belle Epoque' boat, feeling like having a mini-cruise over the Mississipi river, to go to work in our cosy office at the heart of the old Lausanne, I spend most of my free-time unleashing my creativity. Let's talk about music, first: after playing the piano for 12 years, I have been DJing for almost 20 years, getting from the golden age of vinyl records through the digital musical revolution. One of my dreams as a teenager became a reality in 2012 when I was hired as a resident DJ for one of the first underground electronic music clubs in Lille, the now-defunct Kiosk Klub; there, I played 8-hour long DJ sets every Sunday for almost one year.
Lately, I set aside my DJing hobby though you can still hear me playing a few times a year. But I keep a strong link with the electronic music scene from Lille while playing with another aspect of my creative personality: I design dozens of flyers for parties and, most importantly, I am in charge of the branding and visual design of the Stereo Chic concept. These parties, imagined and organized by my brother, bring hundreds of clubbers in various places in Lille and around several times a month.
Last but not least, in my warm and cosy flat in Evian where I now live, I spend most of my weekends imagining and cooking fine food, even if my colleagues only see the tip of the iceberg, the usual savory cakes.
So, have you ever seen a DJ in white coat creating web sites?
Now, you do. :-)
Pierre