Marjorie Lagarde and Killian Paugam, co-founders of Mocha Production

Graduates of the Professional Degree in Project Management in Communication and Graphic Industries from GOBELINS Paris, Marjorie Lagarde and Killian Paugam created their own agency in January 2021. Based in Saint Malo, the Mocha agency supports business creators by offering graphic and strategic services, from brand image to print or digital media.

Marjorie: My heart was swinging between two artistic industries: design and cooking. So I did both! When I was 17, I began working in the culinary world as part of a work-study program at Guy Savoy, then I moved to Australia.

I was eager to find a better balanced job with a passion, so I turned to graphic design and joined GOBELINS in a BTS DG, first as a work-study student at Ferrandi and then at Trait'Tendance, a catering company. I'm never too far from the kitchen! I completed my training with a professional degree in Project Management in Communication and Graphic Industries (MPCIG) to become a creative project manager and have enough confidence to be an entrepreneur. 

Killian: Since high school, I have always been interested in art and the Graphic Design BTS was an obvious choice. I also taught myself motion design and scenography, especially for festivals, where I had the opportunity to work for real clients.

Then I decided to get a bachelor degree in motion design, to improve my professional skills and my management skills with the MPCIG degree from GOBELINS. That year has taught me a lot. It was a step towards entrepreneurship, even if nothing was decided!

Mocha Production is an exciting adventure, with passion, twists and turns and lots of coffee, but to put it more simply... it's a human-scale comprehensive communication agency.

Our goal is to support entrepreneurs with essential communication tools and to build a unique image for small and medium-sized businesses.

We have created an accessible, agile and creative agency offering graphic and strategic services, from brand image to print or digital media, adapted to our clients' budgets without impacting the quality of our services.

We welcome each first project in pairs. At the beginning, the creative process is thought out as a team and then each one of us works on a part of the project depending on our expertise.

We are both art directors and project managers since we graduated from GOBELINS. But we each have our own specific skills, motion design and graphic design for Killian, web design and layout for Marjorie. 

The job market during Covid was not very bright and we wanted to leave Paris for a better quality of life by returning to our native Brittany. That's how we discovered a competitive market that was much more suitable for creating our own agency with a truly local approach. 

To see the reaction of our clients to the outcome of a project... It's priceless! 

With this job, we never have time to get bored, it's (almost) all fun...  

We are like explorers searching for that gold nugget of imagination that will thrill the client. It can happen at any time, when we buy bread, when we drink a beer at a café... and when it happens, most of the time we share this excitement as a team, it's a truly motivating feeling. 

Being our own boss means that we can grow professionally and personally, which is a real challenge for us in the long run!

We have thousands of ideas every day! Next year, we will grow the team, it's important to surround ourselves with the right people to expand our services (SEO, social media...) and above all, this will allow us to create dedicated departments depending on our passions such as Mocha Food & Drink (food branding, Marjorie's initial goal) or Mocha Event (signage & mapping, Killian's hobby). 

We are currently working on other activities like Mocha Edition ( book and board game developments) and Mocha Colors (selling paint etc.)... Very soon, we will unveil our future game "Et Si?” !

©MochaProduction 

Setting up a communications agency (or in a more general sense, a business) is not easy. But what we often say to ourselves is that it's the price of freedom !

The most important thing is to be well surrounded. We wouldn't have started a company at 25/26 years old without each other. Working with trusted partners means being able to count on each other's support when in doubt, or even to take over when your spirits are low !

Another piece of advice is to take a step back from all the events that may happen. It's alright to make mistakes. By keeping this in mind, you can better deal with problems and be more efficient. 

And finally, remain natural. It makes a real difference in front of our clients. Being ourselves and listening, that's what makes our clients feel at home with us, and they keep coming back !

Our favorite memory during our undergraduate years is without a doubt the school’s open house day with the BTS and Bac Pro students. We were a team of MPCIG students thrown into the entrepreneurial deep end in a collaborative, friendly and creative spirit. 

Each one of us had the opportunity to participate in the project and it was a first step towards tomorrow's possibilities. This inspired us a lot in creating the agency as it is evidently once again a project where we found each other !

Interview par Sophie Jean