Designer Spotlight: Clarisse Michard

Hi! My name is Clarisse and I’m a freelance web designer at Okey Studio, currently based in Toulouse, France. Together with Adrien Quéchon, a web developer, we co-founded Okey Studio in 2021 — an independent digital studio specializing in the creation of unique, fully custom websites. We particularly love creating creative and original sites where we can play with ideas, interactions, and visuals, while still meeting our clients’ goals. We put a lot of heart into crafting personalized user experiences, always aligned with the needs and vision of those we work with.

What I especially enjoy is the diversity of sectors we collaborate with: it pushes us to stay curious, constantly test new visual languages, explore unexpected ideas, and challenge our habits.

Featured Work

Cyclops Club

This is the promotional website for Cyclops Club, a New York-based studio offering video production and editing services to optimize your multimedia content. Created within Okey Studio, the site immerses visitors in a quirky, dynamic, and fun universe.

Challenges: We wanted to incorporate nods to the video world (timelines, icons, progress bars, time indicators, REC mode…), as well as GIFs and Easter eggs. The challenge was to maintain a professional tone while keeping it fun — so we had to find the right balance between all these elements.

Personal note: This was one of those projects where you really feel creative freedom, and above all, where we genuinely had fun. Marvin trusted us 200%, which allowed us to push the graphic boundaries quite far while staying consistent with the brand image and goals. We enjoyed hiding little easter eggs and GIFs throughout the site. The nicest was embracing this funny tone while maintaining a professional and controlled foundation.

Virtual Gallery

Virtual Gallery is a personal project we created internally at Okey Studio. The site honors photographers who generously share their photos online. It celebrates their talent through a small virtual photo gallery — like an exhibition space, but in a digital form. We wanted to create a smooth and enjoyable browsing experience through a selection of stunning photos, featuring carefully crafted scrolling and an immersive feel.

Challenges: The biggest challenge was probably selecting the photos. I sorted the images by colors and moods to maintain a consistent aesthetic throughout the site.

Personal notes: Since this is a personal project, it was naturally harder to set boundaries. No client, no deadline… so you want to keep going, keep testing, keep redoing. You have to learn to set limits for yourself and accept that it’s “finished” at some point. But it was also a true creative bubble, a playground and experimental space — the kind of project that reconnects you to the simple joy of designing without constraints.

Inertia Studios

This is the showcase website for Inertia Studios, a London-based creative studio pushing the boundaries of CGI, design, and futuristic aesthetics. Their ambition: create visual experiences that grab you, stop you, and make you feel something real.

Created within Okey Studio, the site adopts a rather sober aesthetic: micro-interactions, smooth transitions, subtle hover effects, large capitals, and solid and well-paced typographic blocks, for a sharp and impactful look — without feeling cold. A true balance between rigor, minimalism, and boldness. I really love the work of Inertia Studios — collaborating on their website redesign was a pure pleasure.

Challenges: Inertia has a strong brand image and an international client portfolio, so it was essential to remain highly professional and perfectly legible. The main challenge was to maintain a “classic” structure in terms of usability (clear information, intuitive navigation) while avoiding boredom by injecting modernity and visual tension.

Studio Karo

Karo is an art and clothing brand based in New York, founded by Anya Karolyn. The studio defines itself as: non-traditional, a unification of artwork, fashion, music and video. Anya reached out to Okey Studio to redesign her e-commerce website. I imagined a more artistic, unconventional, and bold version, fully rooted in her aesthetic. The design adopts a brutalist approach, featuring chrome elements — a color and material that Anya particularly loves — as well as touches of electric blue; both emblematic of her visual identity. We loved transcribing the world of Studio Karo through interactive web animations where users become part of the experience.

Challenges: The challenge was definitely to find the right balance between an artistic, highly personal design — with a strong visual aesthetic — and a smooth, intuitive e-commerce experience. The site needed to both reflect Karo’s unique world while allowing users to navigate easily and shop without any friction.

Personal note: I loved working on this project — Anya and I were truly on the same wavelength from the start. She gave me complete trust, and we immediately understood each other about her desires, her objectives, and the creative direction to take. It was a super creative project where I could bring some different, sometimes bolder ideas — and she absolutely loved it. A smooth, inspiring, and freeing collaboration!

Henri Heymans

Henri is a web developer who contacted me to work on the web design for his first portfolio. His goal was clear: to stand out from other developers and try to win a Site of the Day (SOTD) on Awwwards. The site, now updated (2025), is unfortunately no longer online — but I kept a video and visual captures of it.

It featured a brutalist style on a black background. The design played with very large typographic compositions, scale variations, and a horizontal scroll that paced the navigation. The central element of the site was a 3D liquid metal sphere in negative, located on the homepage. It responded to cursor movements, creating a hypnotic effect that anchored the experience in a living material.

Personal note: This was a project where I could explore a bold design with a strong graphic stance. Henri wanted a site that grabs attention — and we had fun creating a showcase unlike any other.

My personal website

This is my personal website, designed as a creative showcase that reflects both my style and personality. I wanted it to be minimalist in structure, yet fun and human, giving a more intimate glimpse of who I am.

In the loader, Adrien had fun animating the logo with a pixel effect we love — we especially enjoy these kinds of little details. When you arrive on the page, the central feature is a distortion effect applied to the main text, creating a lively and interactive texture.

Since I get bored quickly and like almost every color, I added a “Change the mood” button that lets you modify both the page’s color palette and the welcome GIF in the Hero section. This gives the site an evolving vibe and highlights visual diversity, while adding a playful touch.

It’s not a classic portfolio: no detailed project pages, but rather a personal space where I can present my work in a way that suits me, test ideas, and evolve the site as I please.

Challenges: The real challenge was setting boundaries for myself. When you create for yourself, anything is possible, and I tend to like and try many things. I had to decide: “Okay, this is the direction I choose,” and stick to it until the end.

Thanks to Cédric, videographer, for his awesome work on the video for my showreel.

Background

I studied graphic design in Toulouse, with a final year specializing in web design. I quickly developed a taste for web design and interactive experiences. Right after graduating, I had the opportunity to work directly on web projects as a freelancer — and I decided to fully embark on this adventure.

In 2021, together with Adrien Quéchon, we founded Okey Studio to offer a complete service: custom design and development, hand in hand.

One of the highlights was our very first Site of the Day on Awwwards: after spending my student years admiring other designers’ work on that site, seeing our own work featured there was a true achievement.

Design Philosophy

For me, creating a website means telling a visual story that reflects a brand’s personality. I believe in custom-made solutions, the importance of details, and the idea that a site must be beautiful, functional, high-performing, and designed to stand out, regardless of its complexity.

Tools and Techniques

I use Figma for design and conception, and I love working closely with Adrien on the development side to enhance interactions and brainstorm animation ideas together. I do a lot of creative research and exploration before each project. It’s also essential for me to fully immerse myself in the world of the client or brand I’m working with.

Inspiration

Online, I like to browse sites like Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, FWA, Dribbble, Pinterest, etc. (nothing very original). But I also draw a lot of inspiration from real life: through travel, as well as music, books, and films.

Future Goals

I’d like to keep creating websites that are both creative and tailor-made, with more projects where I have true artistic freedom, or at least plenty of space to propose original ideas. I really enjoy having fun in what I do! And I want to continue refining my work and improving.

Together with Adrien, we would also like to start working on the Okey Studio website — a site that truly reflects who we are and showcases our work and projects. It’s an exciting challenge, but we’ll need to find the time, as projects like this can quickly become a real playground!

Final Thoughts

It’s always a bit tricky to give advice or share a personal message, but I’d simply say: enjoy what you do, have fun, and put your heart into it — it usually comes across in the project 🫶 

Thank you so much for reading, and a big thanks to Codrops and Manoela for inviting me to share a glimpse of my world and work.

You can find my contact info on my website clarissemichard.com
I also share all my latest projects on social media:

• Instagram
• Dribbble
• Awwwards