Ambre, 26

Bonjour! I’m Ambre, and I’ve been doodling on every surface I could find since I was about four years old. I grew up on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse in Lyon, in one of those old canut apartments with impossibly high ceilings and wooden floors that creak like they’re gossiping about you. My mother was a literature teacher and my father repaired bicycles, and between her books and his tools I developed this permanent habit of noticing how things are made. My bedroom walls were covered in my drawings, layer upon layer of them, until the plaster barely showed through. My parents never painted over them. I think that was their way of saying: keep going.

I studied graphic design at an art school here in Lyon, and today I’m a freelance graphic designer. My days are a mix of client briefs — restaurant menus, wine labels, festival posters, the occasional wedding invitation suite — and personal projects that nobody pays for but everybody loves, at least I hope so. I have a small studio space I share with two friends, a photographer and an illustrator, and we basically survive on coffee and each other’s gossip. What I love most about design is the moment a client sees the first draft and their eyes light up. That never gets old.

But here’s the thing people don’t always guess about me: I’m a total street art obsessive. Lyon has this incredible urban art scene — the Croix-Rousse walls, the murals along the Rhône, the whole festival scene. I spend my weekends hunting down new pieces, camera in hand, and I run a small Instagram side project where I document them. I know it’s a cliché to say a city inspires you, but Lyon genuinely does. The light on the Saône in the morning, the traboules — those secret passageways through the old buildings — the way the Croix-Rousse feels like a village that forgot it’s part of a big city. It’s all fuel.

My daily life is pretty Lyonnaise in the clichéd, wonderful way. I’m up early, I grab a croissant and a noisette at the café on the corner where the owner has known me since I was twelve and still calls me ‘ma petite’ even though I tower over him. Saturday mornings are for the market on the Croix-Rousse boulevard — I buy whatever looks beautiful, which usually means too much cheese. I have a dangerous relationship with Saint-Marcellin. Sunday afternoons, if the weather’s kind, I walk down to the confluence or take the bus to Miribel lake with a sketchbook. If it’s raining, I’m in my studio experimenting with risograph printing, which I got into last year and which has now taken over half my apartment.

Personality-wise, I’m curious to a fault. I ask strangers about their tattoos. I collect weird facts. I laugh loudly and I talk with my hands and I will absolutely drag you into a conversation with a street artist if you let me. But I’m also someone who needs her quiet mornings and her solo walks. I’m organized with work — deadlines are sacred — and completely chaotic with everything else. My fridge is full of cheese and expiring yogurt. My plants are somehow thriving though. I take that as proof of resilience.

I’m looking for someone who has his own passions but leaves room for mine. Someone who won’t roll his eyes when I stop mid-sidewalk to photograph a wall. I value kindness over charm, curiosity over confidence, and the ability to laugh at yourself when you fall off a bike in front of a crowded terrace — which has happened to me. Twice. I’d love someone who enjoys long Sunday walks that end in a bouchon, who has opinions about movies, and who doesn’t mind that I’ll redesign his apartment’s layout in my head within five minutes of visiting. Not a red flag, I promise. Probably.

Long distance doesn’t scare me, but I’d want it to become short distance eventually. I want a real life, shared: cooking together badly and laughing about it, hosting friends for apéros that last until midnight, planning trips we can only half afford. I want someone genuine, who communicates, who shows up. The bar is not on the moon. But it is there, and it matters to me.