Software Engineer to Senior Designer in New York: Shillington graduate Simon Fréour.

Before studying at Shillington, Simon Fréour was working in a completely different field.

He studied general engineering in Paris, then spent seven or eight years working as a software engineer, eventually becoming the CTO of a startup in France. But even while building that career, design was always pulling at him. He was doing some UX and UI design as part of his job, reading books about typography, designing on the side and making linocuts as part of an art practice.

“At some point, I felt like my job was not making me too happy,” Simon says. “And I wanted more of that design aspect of things.”

Looking for a way into graphic design, he found Shillington.

“It was really the only thing that was really what I wanted,” he says. “So I just went for it.”

For Simon, the course was also a chance to test out something bigger: life in New York. He had already been thinking about moving abroad, and spending three months in the city while studying design gave him the perfect opportunity to see if it was the right fit.

Simon’s time at Shillington made a strong impression. His former teacher Thiago Eichner remembered him as one of the most eager and curious students he’d taught, someone who lived and breathed design.

But Simon puts that down to the intensity of the experience itself.

His class was also a memorable one because it was during the COVID global pandemic. There was a strong sense of bonding, but also ongoing disruption during the course.

Surprisingly, he remembers it fondly.

“One of my projects, I don’t think would have been as good if I didn’t get COVID,” he joked.

Stuck at home one evening with an idea, he worked until 4am to finish it.

“It was obviously not great to have COVID, but it led to something interesting.”

One of the things Simon valued most about the course was the creative exchange with classmates.

He compares it to working in a studio: while teachers or creative directors might step in at key moments, it’s often the people working through the same briefs you who help shape the work on a daily basis.

“That was the same at Shillington with my classmates,” he says. “Someone looks at your work, sees what you’re doing and tells you what they think.”

That constant feedback loop also extended to inspiration.

“Someone will be like, that reminds me of something I saw,” he says. “So yeah, there’s definitely a thing where who you’re in the same room with will feed your practice for sure.”

One of Simon’s standout projects at Shillington was a branding concept for a film-only camera shop in Melbourne.

He began with a strong narrative: rather than seeing the camera as a tool for capturing the outside world, he imagined it as a portal into another one.

“There’s the real world, and then there’s the eye of the camera, the lens of the camera, and then you enter another world through that lens,” he says.

That idea led him to explore shutter shapes, eye-like forms, portals and subtle esoteric references. Looking back at the project now, Simon can see how much experimentation happened before the final identity came together.

But the key lesson was simplification.

“It needed to stay simple,” he says. “It needed to be the simplest expression of the idea for it to work.”

That doesn’t mean removing personality from the wider brand system. For Simon, the opposite is true: once the core identity is solid, you have much more freedom to play.

“You can simplify the fundamentals of the brand,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t get to have fun with all your other elements when you build brand expressions.”

Almost five years later, he still stands by the work.

“I actually wouldn’t do it too differently,” he says. “I would do more, but I still think this works.”

Simon's Branding project at Shillington, Visions:

Another unforgettable student project was Simon’s packaging concept for apple juice for psychologists. A brief that brought together his design thinking and his linocut practice.

Looking at references connected to early psychoanalysis and German Expressionism, Simon was drawn to woodcuts and linocuts from that period and decided to make his own imagery by hand.

“It was really fun to do,” he says.

For Simon, the project reinforced the value of concept-led thinking. When there’s a clear story or idea behind the work, the creative decisions become much easier.

“If you’re not sketching at random and you have an idea of a concept or some storytelling, it makes things easier,” he says.

Including process in the portfolio also turned out to be a strength when he began showing the work to employers.

“It set me apart,” he says. “There’s a lot of graphic designers out there and everybody knows Illustrator and Photoshop. It’s all about showing that you have an edge.”

That tactile quality mattered then, and he thinks it matters even more now.

“AI is incredibly powerful,” Simon says. “But what it can’t do, at least so far, is reproduce that tactile feeling of something that’s been done by hand.”

After graduating in December 2021, Simon returned to France, freelanced for a short period and began applying for jobs in the US. Eventually, he came back to New York on a tourist visa for two months and focused on finding work in person.

The portfolio he built at Shillington played a major role.

Now that Simon reviews portfolios himself, he believes that focus is exactly what matters most.

“What matters is that it’s work first,” he says. “Designing the portfolio is secondary as long as it shows the work.”

He also believes that studios want junior designers who can contribute straight away.

“Being able to tell people with confidence that you’re able to work from day one, that you know the tools, that you know how a studio works, that you can manage your time, that’s super important,” he says.

After graduating, Simon was deliberate about making himself visible. He attended design events, met people across the industry and submitted work for awards.

For him, awards aren’t really about prestige. They’re useful because they force you to finish the work, package it up and send it out into the world.

“You could always add to it. You could always make it a tiny bit better,” he says. “But at some point, you get to call it done and you get to send it out.”

He sees events in a similar way. Not every event is incredible, but being in the room matters.

“Whatever puts you out there is a good idea,” he says.

And one of the surprises of the New York design scene was how approachable it felt.

“You go to graphic design events, type events, stuff like that, and there’s those people that you think are the stars of the game,” he says. “And they’re just there, grabbing a drink after the show.”

Also: “Sometimes there is free pizza.”

Simon first discovered Sunday Afternoon through the Type Directors Club, after seeing that one of the studio’s creative directors had won an award. He reached out on LinkedIn and asked if they’d like to grab coffee.

That approach was shaped by one piece of advice he found especially useful: don’t ask for a job straight away.

“If you ask people for a job right away, they’re gonna get into interview mode,” he says. “It’s better to ask people for just some advice.”

People are much more open to an informal conversation, and that’s exactly how things began. Simon met the team for coffee at the studio, they chatted for an hour, and soon after, everything changed.

“It just happened,” he says. “All of a sudden it works.”

He joined Sunday Afternoon on a J-1 visa in a trainee role for a year and a half, later switching to an O-1 visa. Today, he’s a Senior Designer at the studio, where he’s now been for more than three years.

At Sunday Afternoon, Simon is part of a three-designer team. Two of those designers are Shillington graduates.

What stands out to him about the studio is its practical, no-nonsense attitude.

That mindset has shaped his experience there. As the most senior of the three designers, he works closely with creative directors who are still deeply involved in making the work themselves.

“You get to work with some of the best people in the business,” he says. “You get to see them sketch and you get to take over what they did and change it a little bit.”

Reflecting on a favourite project from the past few years, Simon described a branding project for a media agency that started with an extremely simple system and then opened out into something much richer.

“What I like about this project is that it’s really a system that seems very simple at first,” he says. “But then the way it opens up is the beginning of a system that really shines.”

The project was also challenging because it involved a large company with multiple stakeholders, which meant navigating more internal politics and more complex decision-making.

“That’s the next level of skill,” Simon says. “You want to understand how your clients think and how they make decisions.”

For him, great work has an immediate quality.

“We like to say that the good stuff slaps you in the face,” he says. “It looks dope.”

So which parts of the Shillington framework still stay with him?

A lot, actually.

He sees design less as a question of natural talent and more as a combination of methodology, discipline, visual culture and taste built over time.

The two tools he returns to most are ideation on paper and mood boarding.

“Some of the best stuff happens on paper,” he says. “I don’t get the best ideas when I’m already on Illustrator or Photoshop.”

He still uses mood boards too, even if the process looks a little looser now than it did when he was a student.

“Mood boarding and ideating on paper and getting to a concept,” he says, “is the two things that I still use a lot from Shillington.”

Alongside his studio work, Simon also spends time on personal projects, including designing flyers for DJ friends and nightlife events in New York.

That work gives him room to experiment in a different way.

“When you’re making a flyer, you can do whatever you want,” he says. “When you’re working for a corporate client, there’s more constraints.”

Those side projects are creative, social and useful. They help him keep developing his own voice, and they also show future employers that he’s serious about the craft.

“The only way to get better is by doing it,” he says.

In a competitive industry, he sees that kind of extra effort as essential.

“The job we’re doing is a job that a lot of people want to do,” Simon says. “There is fierce competition when it comes to getting hired. So whatever you can do to get better at it and show an edge and have a voice is great.”

For now, Simon is focused on continuing the work he’s doing at Sunday Afternoon while making time for personal projects alongside it.

“We’re doing great work here, so I’m going to keep doing that,” he says.

His story is a reminder that building a design career isn’t about waiting for permission or relying on talent alone. It’s about committing fully, building a process, showing your work and putting yourself out there.

From engineering in Paris to senior designer in New York, Simon Fréour’s path into design was a bold one but also a practical one, built step by step through curiosity, effort and doing the work.