368 pages Edited by Joran Briand Text(s) by Joran Briand & Paul-Henry Bizon Designed by Studio Briand & Berthereau 23 x 17 cm Language: French & English Hardback Publisher: Room Number 2026
Room Number Editions presents West is the Best, a new book by designer Joran Briand. The result of more than ten years of travel, the book retraces encounters with Californian, Mexican, and French creators whose work maintains an intimate dialogue with the ocean. From Jean Jullien to John Van Hamersveld, from Julian Schnabel to Ronan Bouroullec, West is the Best draws a sensitive cartography where art and surf culture intersect.
Far removed from the clichés of surf magazines filled with perfect waves and fantasized tubes, West is the Best is a spiritual project — a search for horizon and immersion. For twelve years, designer Joran Briand explored the western coasts of California, Mexico, and France in order to reveal ways of living, creating, and working in connection with the ocean.
Along this long journey, he met creatives from multiple disciplines — artists, architects, photographers, designers, stylists, dancers — and shared suspended moments with them, both in their studios and on their favorite waves. Halfway between a moodboard and a road book, West is the Best unfolds like an exquisite corpse, woven through encounters. An open, almost organic book, it resembles a moving poem: an endless journey toward the West.
Within its pages, readers discover simple and sincere stories — those of creators driven by the desire for elsewhere, seeking a return to what is essential. By listening to their sensations, they nourish their practice through the experience of the oceanic world, self-discovery, and encounters with others.
This book champions the idea that another way of living and creating is possible — more sensitive, freer, and deeply connected to the ocean and its natural elements.
