Portfolio — Vol. 12 Paris & New York · Est. 2009
01 — The Masthead

Margaux Vaillant

Creative Director Brand Writer Editorial Consultant

I help brands, magazines, and cultural institutions find the truest way to say what they mean — then give the words room to breathe.

Fifteen years between the features desk and the brand studio. One obsession: the right sentence, set beautifully.

Selected Work
Clients & bylines AesopHermèsLe LaboCerealFlosKinfolk
Good copy doesn’t shout. It leans in, lowers its voice, and tells you something true.
A working principle
03 — Colophon

About

Editorial roots, a brand-studio practice, and a byline in a few places worth reading.

“The two disciplines — editorial and brand — are really one: the patient work of finding the truest sentence.”

M. VaillantInk on paper

Margaux Vaillant is a creative director and writer who has spent fifteen years shaping how brands, magazines, and cultural institutions sound on the page. She began in editorial — a features desk, then a small imprint — before moving into brand, where she found the crafts were the same trade under two names.

Today she leads narrative and art direction for a short list of clients from a studio near the Canal Saint-Martin, and keeps a hand in longform: essays and criticism that have run in The Paris Review, Cereal, and Frieze. She teaches a seminar on writing for design at the École, and reads far more than she publishes.

She works best in the space between the brief and the blank page — the part where a company decides not just what to say, but who it wants to be when it says it.

Selected Clients

  • Aesop
  • Hermès
  • Le Labo
  • Flos
  • Cereal Magazine

Recognition

  • D&AD Pencil ’23
  • The One Show ’22
  • Type Directors Club ’21
  • ADC Merit ’20

Capabilities

  • Brand Voice
  • Editorial Direction
  • Longform & Copy
  • Naming
  • Creative Strategy
05 — Correspondence

Have something that deserves the right words?

hello@margauxvaillant.com

Currently booking select projects for Autumn 2026 — brand narrative, launches, and editorial.