Why Simon Vergély gets suspicious when things look too perfect

Creative Boom: Inspiration Motion Why Simon Vergély gets suspicious when things look too perfect The self-taught French animator makes wicked, grainy, gloriously imperfect films – and there's encouraging demand for his work. We caught up with him about taming the wrong tools, '90s hip-hop and why the grain is the whole point. Written By: Katy Cowan 8 July 2026 There's a lovely, naughty quality to Simon Vergély's work. A mischievous take on modern life that imagines what might happen if we could get away with it. His scenarios are wicked, surreal and often a little dark, casting a grotesque lens on our humanity. Shocking and funny in the same breath.

In one film, titled Gravity, Vergély imagines what would happen if gravity were switched off. As you can imagine, everything that normally hangs down begins to rise. A small boy licking an ice cream gets an accidental eyeful as the skirt of a towering woman in red heels drifts upward. An elderly naked man glances down to find himself... defying gravity too, his shadow on the wall staging the same revolt. In another, titled Addict, we get a bunch of male and female genitalia, served up as our wicked addictions. Cigarettes, drugs, sugar, fast food. Sex. It makes for uncomfortable viewing – in a good way.

The 2D animator and motion artist, who works as [SIC]Film, is also completely "self-taught", which certainly hasn't held him back. Learning alone, he says, means "you have to become your own teacher and your own critic". And that hard-won independence shows, as the work doesn't look like anyone else's. It also explains the handmade quality: everything is a bit shaky and human, because Simon works on instinct rather than by following any rules. Imperfection is his north star. If everything works too perfectly, he tends to get suspicious. "Sometimes, it's imperfections that make the work feel alive," he says.

But making something look deliberately imperfect is harder than it sounds. "You need to understand how to create something clean and precise to deliberately break it, distort it, or give it a more organic and imperfect quality," he explains. "That roughness is something I consciously build. It's not the result of a lack of control." Everything feels slightly unstable, and that's also inspired by '90s culture, when everything was analogue and physical. "The hip-hop I love from that era has this raw, gritty quality, sometimes with the subtle crackle and grain of vinyl," he explains.

"It's not overly polished; it feels very textured and physical." This is close to my heart. The shaky quality to his animations takes me back to the glory days of Beavis and Butt-Head and The Ren & Stimpy Show. When MTV ruled the world. It's nostalgic and a much-needed take on modern times, at a moment in history when everything feels homogenised. Where did it all begin? Vergély started in product design, where he learned to draw and construct forms to solve a brief. To this day, thanks to that grounding, he approaches an image "almost as if it were an object, something to be built and resolved rather than just depicted".

But whilst that early training informs the work, he says, it doesn't dictate how he builds a film. Animation came much later. Fresh out of design school and living in Birmingham, where he spent four years, he and a friend began teaching themselves through competitions and personal projects, with no interest in returning to a classroom. "We wanted to learn by doing, on our own terms," he says. The contests handed them briefs and deadlines to actually finish things; the freedom to choose their own themes did the rest. And the software? Whatever was to hand.

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The article discusses a unique perspective on brand strategy that emphasizes authenticity over perfection, which is increasingly relevant in today's market, particularly in the context of motion design.