A Design Language

Two slatted metal loungers on a concrete pad in the grass below the stone ramparts of the Château de Caen

Permenantly installed reclining chairs can be found in all the best spots around the city. I just found some just like this on the embankment of the port in Caen. These are on the front side of the Château de Caen.

A wall-mounted Tork paper towel dispenser hanging open, showing the bubble level in its backplate, the refill mechanism, and illustrated reloading instructions on the cover

I have no reason to think this is distinctly French, and frankly it must be only the third paper towel dispenser I've ever seen open, but that the University of Caen chose this particular one felt sufficient to include it in my anthology here. The paper never gets stuck in these things; it's always just the right amount of tension. And then there's this nice little indicator for how much is left until it's empty. But the reason this made the list for me is because of the level inside, presumably only meant to be used the one time that the dispenser is installed somewhere. I mean, that's just really considering the experience of the installer in that one moment.

A small Milka chocolate bar on a desk, its wrapper opened by a red tear strip pulled halfway along the package

There's a strip of red tape which makes opening the wrapper all the way more convenient. I can't think of anything more thoughtful for anything less important. These candies come with all espressos on campus unless you explicitly request to not have one. Not bad chocolate, if you ask me.

A curved red and black radiator curling around the top of a spiral staircase in a bookshop, doubling as a barrier

This curved black and red partition doubles as a heater and fence to keep passers-by from falling down the spiral staircase. Slick.

A bank of metro exit gates labeled PASSAGE INTERDIT, with the side gate standing wide open

"Passage Interdit" == "Forbidden Access." Notwithstanding this, it's been very common to find gates like this just left open or — in some cases — plainly non-existant. The French approach to security seems more "trust but verify" than struggle to stop people from doing things (such as with bigger, stronger, taller gates). Maybe my sample size is skewed from one experience with a friend who boarded a tram without a ticket, but the company operators boarded and requested all our tickets at the very next stop. This is one of the reasons I have the impression that surveillence might be taken a little more seriously as a security measure here. If this were true, it would be an interesting adoption of Bentham's penopticon model — something which could only begin to be realized on a societal scale in the 21st century. I think it's cool, but maybe we're careening toward Orwell's 1984. 🤷‍♂️

A holographic LED fan display suspended on cables from the stone wall of the Gare Saint-Lazare concourse, spinning above café tables of seated travellers

This way of rendering info preserves as much as possible the context of being in this specific room, compared with traditional signed-advertisements which require a backing that obscures what's behind it, no matter how little space the graphic itself takes up. I was already aware this tech existed, but I'd never seen a real-world application until here.

Mirror selfie in an SNCF station restroom, where every fixture is labeled — essuie-mains, savon, poubelle — beside a smiley-button cleanliness feedback panel

THIS WAS INCREDIBLE. 1) Everything is tucked mostly out of sight to create an aesthetic presentation. 2) Then solving the problem of discoverability, everything is neatly labeled. Yes, they're leaning more on signage than iconography, but in their defense there is some iconography. 3) There is an experience feedback button included on each mirror! Found inside the Gare de Saint-Lazarre (the train station hub in Paris which most directly connects with Caen). I think it cost a Euro to enter, but wow, first class stuff.

A small moulded waste bin built into the blue seat back of an SNCF train, marked with a litter pictogram

Small metal trash cans included for each pair of seats on the SNCF trains (the dominant system in France).

A stepless inclined moving walkway carrying two shoppers down past shelves stacked with washing machines

An escalator with no steps! This store sells mostly large things like washing machines, so this is the perfect solution to avoid an elevator which would jam up traffic.

A mall corridor lounge with orange and red benches, an oversized lamp with built-in power outlets, and a floor of yellow, orange and grey stripes

I don't know how to qualify this design, but it really caught my attention. Found it in the mall I habitually pass through when going grocery shopping at the Carrefour market here.

A large autonomous floor-scrubbing robot parked in the appliance aisle of a Carrefour hypermarket

This cleaning machine in the aisle is actually a robot, and it was 100% autonomously going around the store cleaning, going through all the same places as regular shoppers. A totally new sight for me.

A wooden boardwalk above a shopping center, where metal railings zigzag across the path to interrupt a straight run

The placement of these banisters is to prevent someone from running or bicycling to their demise! This design pattern of railings which interrupt walking like this is common in other places, too. Crosswalks, for example, sometimes have these to discourage people from crossing too many lanes of traffic at once. Behind me in this photo, there is a long boardwalk (~100m) suspended over a parking lot. Ahead of me — beyond the railings — is an incredibly steep set of stairs which descend three stories.

A signpost of dark blue pedestrian fingerposts — château 3min, le port 6min, hôtel de ville 13min, hippodrome 12min — in front of a Gothic church and a passing tram

These pedestrian signs indicate the amount of time by foot going somewhere will probably take! Incredible.

A metal retractable bollard set into a cobblestone forecourt at the Château de Versailles, with wooden posts, bare winter trees and passing walkers behind it

Pillars which allow cars conditional access to a space are really common here. This was at the Château de Versailles.

A no-stopping sign at night with two plates beneath it: SAUF next to a hand pictogram, and a tow truck hauling a car away

Two things: 1: "Sauf" translates to "except." It ends up communicating the same idea as "only" like all the parking signage in the US, but it's just not the same. It begins with the assumption no one can park and then adds the specificity for who can, whereas the signage in the US begins with the specificity of who can park, implying no one else can. It doesn't matter at all, and yet I'm just always a little jarred by it. 2: I'll have to rediscover what the meaning of the hand is. Kinda bizarre, though, no?

Looking down through glass at an automated book-return system in the Library of Caen, where a white modular conveyor belt curves down to drop returned books into black plastic bins

I never expected the end of humanity to be born from the book return system in the Library of Caen, but lo-and-behold, it has been.

A green POINT DE RASSEMBLEMENT sign on a post beside two parked bicycles, on a waterfront plaza

Rendez-vous signs have been in every part of France I've visited. This one is right outside a library near the port in Caen, but I've also seen them in Paris.

A stairwell split down the middle with orange tape, with floor signs reading DESCENTE SEULEMENT on one side and MONTÉE SEULEMENT on the other

Sides of the stairwell for going up and down during Covid.

Seat-back screen on an airplane showing a live bird's-eye camera view of the wing and runway lights at night

My airplane to from Newark, NJ to Paris, France had cameras on all sorts of cool parts of the airplane: looking straight down from undernearth, looking ahead from behind the central front wheel, and looking from a bird's eye view like pictured here. It was so cool seeing the takeoff and landing like this

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