/Interview/ Matt Firth
10/07/2006 | Filed under Design > Interview
Matt Firth is design director at Dare Digital in London. After humble beginnings designing ads for Yellow Pages on the night shift, he soon began working with flash and built up a portfolio to get him through the door at Dare in 2002. Matt learned the trade from the bottom up and says now is a great time to get into the web design industry: “There are plenty of opportunities out there, the young creatives we see tend to be strong on ideas or have great production skills, but there are very few people that have both.”
.net: How did you get to be where you are now?
Matt: I studied a two year art foundation course in Weston- Super-Mare followed by a graphics degree at Newport School of Art and Design. After graduation I moved to Bristol and started doing a few freelance jobs, such as flyers and record covers. I was still doing mainly print design and was learning Director in my spare time on a 4400 Mac I brought with my student loan. My first full-time job was designing ads for Yellow Pages on the night shift. I moved to London in 2000 and did some more freelancing, which gave me my first experience with flash.
.net: Is the design market getting really over-crowded now, or are you finding bigger and better clients are still in abundance?
Matt: Abundance is a bit strong, but there seems to be plenty of work out there as more clients realise the importance and potential of digital media. Our existing clients are increasing their budgets and ambitions, enabling us to push things further and do better work, which in turn attracts more clients.
Matt: I’m working on a nice photography site for Sony Ericsson at the moment to support its latest phone launch. We’re doing a video shoot in a science lab to generate some nice assets, as well as working with the new effects that are possible in flash 8. Combining video with flash 8 bitmap effects is going to give us some really great results.
.net: What’s been your best work at Dare?
Matt: I feel most proud of the Vodafone Mayfly site. It was very well received by the client and featured on many design award sites, which prompted Vodafone to produce a new cut of the TV commercial adding the URL at the end.
.net: Do you think it’s essential to be in the creative hub of London to get the best work?
Matt: Not really. If you’ve got the reputation to bring in the work anyway it’s probably just more expensive to base yourself in London. It certainly helps us though, because we have strong relationships with other agencies based in London and some of our clients are here so it’s easier to meet up.
.net: What do you think of the mobile web? Is it hot or not from your point of view?
Matt: Definitely hot, but it needs a single direction to move in or we will have a situation where there are competing standards and that will simply end up confusing everyone. There’s so much potential with mobile web possibilities, which makes the future seem really exciting.
.net: Have you dabbled with AJAX yet?
Matt: Not personally, but I know our tech guys are ‘dabbling’ and looking at how it can be used in an interesting way. It’s got usability issues, but you can do some really powerful things with it. There’s some great stuff you can achieve with user interface results like the Zuggest application that enables you to search Amazon products while it updates your results as you type (www.francisshanahan.com/zuggest.aspx).
.net: How much time do you spend testing new and upgraded design software?
Matt: The new packages I do try are usually recommended to me by friends or colleagues. I know the packages I like using and just try to make an effort to keep up-to-date with upgrades and new features. When I’m coming up with ideas for a new site I think it’s good not to feel restricted by what a certain package can do, but try to come up with the idea first then see if there is anything out there that can make it work.
.net: Is it better to specialise in one design package or do you need to be a jack of all trades?
Matt: I think it’s hard not to end up specialising in one thing. In my experience people generally find they are better at some things than others and also enjoy certain aspects of design or production more. Having said that, I think specialism comes with time and experience so it’s important to try different things to work out what you like and give yourself a better understanding of the bigger picture.
Matt: Sure, I’d love to, but I think it’s still early days. We only have a small team out there spear-heading the way. We’ve done some great stuff and we’ve also worked on some of the US stuff in the studio in London.
.net: What’s the web design scene like in the Big Apple at the moment?
Matt: There seems to be a split between agencies that try to do everything in-house and those who outsource everything. So there are supercool production houses like Barbarian (www.barbariangroup.com), which ends up doing behind-the-scenes work for many of the ad agencies. Perhaps this will happen more in London – it’d be great if it did.
.net: Speaking of apples, what would you like Apple to make next?
Matt: An iToaster with a playlist that mixes up my toasting preferences to provide varied and crispy entertainment.
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Comments
Mathew Browne / 23/10/2007 / 11:27 / http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk
From designing ad for Yellow Pages on the night shift to design director - it's like a rags to riches web development story.
In total agreement r.e. working in London - work will find talent, so why put up with the hideous expense of our nation's capital?
Mike / 10/07/2008 / 16:26 / http://www.trcreative.co.uk
Love reading these interviews from like-minded people.
Hope we can share the same success. Would love new offices in New York, think that's when you've made it.
Well done Matt and keep up the good work!
Patrick Flynn (PJ) / 12/07/2008 / 23:14
Is this the Matt Firth I used to know from Newport.
