The story of Mata

1999

The name ‘Mata’ is created: In the process of leaving Terabyte and moving on. It’s time to build a website to showcase my build and design work. I was called ‘Matta’ by a lot of people and that was the domain I wanted. matta.co.nz was taken by a playground safety-mat manufacturer in 1997. At the time shorter was better so I looked at ‘matt a’ and changed it to ‘mat a’. I was then aware that it became a word in Māori, Japanese, Spanish and more. The meanings mostly aligned with the visual nature of my creative identity (eyes) and Ngāi Tahu heritage. I then went ahead and got www.mata.co.nz in the year 2000 for my domain to host my portfolio and CV information interactively online.

2001

Forced to make a big call: Dark days loom with optimism at the core. After leaving Terabyte in 2000, I move into a Creative Lead role at Webmedia. Webmedia had some amazing app-like websites and stunning design/programmer fused Flash work going on. I was inspired by the skills of the team, and ended up working on a variety of projects for clients while also moonlighting side projects (dance party flyers) in the entertainment space as Mata. Mata Limited is set up as a company in the companies register 27th July 2001. Webmedia closes its doors sadly around September 2001. What an amazing group of people to work with. Mata officially starts trading as a full-time design business in late 2001. A short stint at Webmedia but I would not be where I am today without this time with Wm³ crew.

Designing the Mata logo: I had the name Mata, and the website mata.co.nz but no logo. One very interesting branding job I had, was rebranding Terabyte Interactive, a huge 90+ staff interactive leader. Updating the logo designed by Philip Lord. In an interesting move this was done as a ‘contract job’ outside the company in c. 1998. I knew that a rebrand for Terabyte would need bullet proof rationale to pitch a new logo to a creative company loaded with designers and stakeholders. With that my own fact focussed rationale-based brand design process was born. The design concepts were put forward with this bullet proof fact focussed rationale behind them but alas, concepts were considered but never used. Yes, the evolution made sense but was not seen as the right fit at the time – the brand stayed the same but colour shifted. It’s 2001 now and I need a logo for Mata – how about that logo I designed for Terabyte? It matched my visual communications brand (eye / visual) and the technology associated with data and storage (round with a centre) which was the Terabyte logo coming together to form one circle with a dot in the center. I asked if I could use it and the answer was yes. The Mata logo was created with the logo device and Frutiger typeface. I designed a die-cut business card with an embossed logo.

Setting up the Mata office: Later in 2001 I must set up a home office to work out of. I had worked solely on Macs since the late 80s but at the time of setting up Mata a Windows machine was about half the price of a Mac. It was this point I changed from Mac to Windows as my main design platform. Soon after starting out alone, I get a call from an ex-colleague (thank you Lisa Hartnett) in recruitment that has a contract design role with MAF (MPI) – replacing another designer on the ‘Protect New Zealand’ campaign. This is the first big client for Mata and allowed Mata to exist and work was done over the course of the funded period. The first studio was in the loft space of our Mt Eden flat. It was a quirky but cool space to work in :)

2002

Moving on, connections and client growth: Having a decent contract to keep going, I picked up work from my networks along the way. One job would link me to another job, or a new client and my client base grew organically. Moving on from flatting in Mt Eden to buying my first home in Mt Albert. I moved the studio from the upstairs loft to its own room at the house and worked there for a few years until I wanted a change. In that time, I managed to get some great clients, Skinfood being a major client at the same time as PNZ and then continuing for many years. Daisies who are still my client from 2006, thank you! In Motion Media thanks to Travis O’Keefe who has given me a tonne of work over the years and grew my network. There were many smaller jobs along the way until the move into the Cactuslab Offices in Newmarket.

2005

Newmarket studio: Late 2005 Mata moves in with Cactuslab. Subleasing a space that was its own room and back to together with two Webmedia colleagues Matt Buchanan and Karl Von Randow. Straight away I do some small jobs for Cactuslab to help and then get some side projects to go along with my growing client base. Matt B teaching Matt A CSS tricks and upping my build game - another big thanks to Matt and Karl for the extra work and the space. Matt is a designer who did a computer science degree, with that, a super strong technical creative with razor sharp detail. Karl is other-wordly in his coding, while able to guage and talk to anybody at their level - a true wonder. To note I took over development of the Improv Bandits website in 2006 by maintaining and updating the website for Wade Jackson. Just like Daisies another client I still work with across many different businesses.

New people: While in this space I have two interns come on board, Andrew Archer who came to see me just as I was leaving the home office, and Koreen Liew-Young who was working with IMM came later.

Andrew Archer was a sign writer by trade at that time but had some incredible illustrations that blew me away. Andrew did production work and was really skilled on computers a bit like me. We worked together for a few projects, like IMM and Skinfood - then the new Karen Murrell project was something we worked together on fusing my product design concepts and packaging design with beautiful illustrations by Andrew. Andew soon after started his own illustration business and has done creative art for huge international brands.

Koreen Liew-Young was one of those sharp-focussed people who you can trust. Koreen was able to adapt to the variety of media design challenges that were available through IMM and then on to further projects where her skills grew. She has had her own graphic design company since 2012.

Five years in the penthouse studio; The Studio stays in the top floor space for 5 years and in that time gained a whole lot of new clients. Notably the biggest client I have had and still do is Triquestra. Pitching for the work in 2008 and then designing a brand guide, promotions and a new Cactuslab CMS driven website. Since then, we’ve gone through 3 major brand shifts, worked on projects and built products together. Work is busy and many projects get done, some have new year pressure and back to work on the 3rd of January two years straight. I have two years of no Christmas holidays which for me is the only time I take a break. I am 36 years old and come to a realisation I have been working full time for 18 years - that’s half my life. It’s not like me, but I want to get out of this place - and have the idea to have a sabbatical year.

2010

Change is afoot, in many ways: Cactuslab have outgrown the top floor office space and make the decision to get a larger space in the existing building. There’s still a space for Mata in the extra room in the new space so we all move together into the new space a couple of floors down. The seed of the sabbatical has been planted and is growing stronger now with plans of being able to work remotely in 2011.

2011

Sabbatical year: May 2011 we embark on a 51 week around the world trip. I have never done an OE or all that much travel before now. I have a MacBook Air ready to work from, with both Windows and Mac operating systems on board. Everything in the ‘cloud’ now if possible. Files in Dropbox and Google Drive. Email has been transitioned to Gmail mirror, time keeping and invoicing to FreshBooks and accounts to Xero. Creative cloud is all online and means that being a creative digital nomad is totally possible. I keep on doing work for clients at a lower capacity of course and manage to pay for half the trip this way. What a journey, learning so much, seeing different cultures, art, design, friends and family along the way. So many positives, being able to step back and take focus at what I wanted in life. I started game design this year and created my first game concept. On the negative side, some clients did not want me to be away so moved on.

2012

The Kingsland Studios: on returning home to New Zealand we manage to score a commercial space for the business as a live-work space right in the heart of Kingsland. At the same time as we return, a work-on-site project turns up, so I am cycling on the daily to work as creative alongside a developer building a ‘cloud’ product. Soon after that comes a huge international project that is more like I used to deal with in larger companies. The website project scaled up significantly had time pressure, so I was able to bring on two ex-Terabyte colleagues Phil Bannister and Tracey Hemmingway to help work on the project with my client. International travel was back again but for work this time. Major project completed, along with other projects and game development in the long skinny Kingsland studio.

2015

Family business: 2015 brings mini me into the world :) we have our first born. Living with us in the live-work studio in Kingsland. Working on many projects and still going on the gaming front. I have two games that are playing really well and a true proof of concept. The game engine is a bit frustrating, but it’s allowed me to make two game prototypes that play really well on mobile. One thing that’s been with me for 10 years is chronic back pain. Years of top level, elite Touch Football took its toll one day and my back gave way. Hobbled home never to play another game. The Life chair was a chair I got to help with posture, but it turns out that sitting was my problem after the back injury. I didn’t fix this with treatment, it happened naturally after moving to a standing desk.

2016

Moving next door: The end of 2015 and starting 2016 we have outgrown the slim space as the family grew. Next door the printing business ‘Direct to plate’ was moving out into the main print warehouse in the neighbouring building. So, we took the lease over, redecorated the space and moved into a much larger live-work studio.

Unlike the bunker that had street sign. That sign used the original branding style that I had used for a long time. It stood the test of time, but times were changing and one thing that was happening was my skillset was often out of comprehension. I was often seen as one thing to people when I had decades of experience in so many areas. So, with that I updated my brand design to a more colourful explanatory level. I also had the challenge to be able to show street-front the business to people and what it could do while also making the front glass door semiprivate and expanding on the new design shift. This was the result, new signage with tinted glass, and a small viewing gap. This was my new colourful brand back then and business cards that I still use to today.

Projects keep on coming and with some big ones out of the way there’s a lot happening in the digital world. That means some rebranding going on and new style digital projects on board. New clients and all sorts of projects are happening. It’s been great to work with people through so many years and now Wade Jackson is doing a whole lot of growth and development with his own personal growth tools.

I get contacted about taking on another internship. Romana Riegler (Romy) is a student studying Communication Design at AUT. comes in to the studio to do some work. Romy works on projects with me, and I helped her out with whatever knowledge I could. And how wonderful working with somebody else can be as no matter how old or the experience they have they can teach you stuff too. Romy has gone on to work as a creative at J.A. Russel and is now a Creative Services Manager at JLL.

2017 and still working on many projects and having some great consistent work from good clients, our lease was coming to an end, and we were also looking for a change with a growing child at the forefront. While Kingsland central was great it came it with some changing elements that were not the best for the live-work space.

2018

The Strack House Studio: After six years in commercial spaces the next move was underway. The Studio is now located in our residential house. Open plan and shared desk spaces we enjoy in Maurice K Smith’s Strack House. The colouring of this website is the same colour as the house if anyone ever wondered. The studio is set up in the sunken lounge area, and we have plans to improve the space to make it a great live work combination.

Projects continue with multiple packaging updates for Savour. Savour is a great client where there’s packaging, website and promotional items like brochures, pull up signs and online marketing. The Covert Theatre opens, and closes, and opens… Covid hits everyone in 2020 and at the tail end of that we welcome mini me number two. Work is a challenge with the lockdowns and sporadic opening and closing of lock down protocols. Mata continues to work through with notable projects like rebranding Zeald and subsequently Izzybots and Outrun. Connecting with another creative who works in the food industry things are booming. Life goes back to normal and she’s quiet and it’s busy for me. Workflow is a rollercoaster for a lot of people, but we make it through and keep on.

2023

Drama, drama, drama-roll please: Bad things come in threes, and 2023 is no joke with disastrous flooding and inflation causing a cost-of-living cyclone. But despite this, years in the making (more like waiting), the studio had to be semi-finished and the build on this will be a blog post for sure. But the studio is nearly done after building a floating sit stand desk with custom brackets and a prototype desktop build. It’s worked out really well and now the studio is looking and feeling great.

2024

Looking like 2024 is going to be a year to fix some of the last 3 years undoing’s. The next thing is to hunt for some work, it’s not come vicariously like it always done. So I am putting the word out and connections for potential projects.