“All Our Wrong Todays”: The Colossal Worlds Of Nicolas Bouvier

The diversity of the world always fascinated him. He knew he was privileged to have had the chance to travel the world extensively at such a young age. From Europe to the States, via China and Singapore, everywhere he went, he observed the people closely and took notes of all the tiny details of the lives of these strangers. Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvie, known as Sparth, let loose his creativity and quickly went from being a mere observer, to translating forms and concepts in impressive game art designs.

Today Sparth is the Art Director of Halo 5: Guardians, the latest installment to the popular series developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios.

His professional career began at Darkworks Studio, the Paris based game studio responsible for Alone in the Dark 4, where he worked for six years. In 2003, he moved to Montreal to join Ubisoft on their ongoing projects Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Assassin’s Creed. He then head to Idsoftware in Dallas, in 2005, where he spent more than three years working on different games, including the extremely popular Rage.

It was in January 2009 that Sparth finally moved to Seattle to participate in designing the future HALO adventures with 343 Industries, the Microsoft studio in charge of the Halo franchise.

His career has been strongly influenced by the various cultures and locations he witnessed whilst growing up. His multiple interests range from space to buildings, robotics and beyond, but his greatest passion remains contemporary architecture. With a unique and experimental approach, Sparth often applies principles of contemporary architecture in his own art. He has a thing for modern skyscrapers, and although he flies high with his imagination, he confesses he wouldn’t be able to live too high above the ground himself.

Sparth has been an active artistic director and concept designer in the gaming industry since 1996 and has contributed to the development of multiple games and books, including his own art book series Structura 1, 2, and 3, published by DesignStudioPress.

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