Technology and Craft
IADT- Chicago instructor Nathan Matteson draws from his past to compete in the chaotic industries of Graphic Design and Web Design.
Words by Ron Wade
Photography by Richard Liu
“My first memory is the day we moved to Beattyville, Kentucky. My brother and I were playing with this toy truck outside on a low, stone wall while my Dad was opening the moving van to throw on his boots because the town was on fire. The whole town was on fire.” It is amazing that you can know a person for over ten years, and in one simple statement, things start to fall into place. That is how Nathan Matteson, an instructor in the Graphic Design and Web Design programs at IADT- Chicago opened our interview. In many ways, Nate looks at the design industry like that town; an industry going through changes as he stands in the middle of it–calm and looking for what will happen next.
A lot of designers claim they like to get their hands dirty; usually meaning that they are willing to step away from the computer for a few minutes to do a press check. Nate, on the other hand, is as comfortable hammering pieces out on a letterpress, slinging code for the web, or wrenching on his Triumph GT-6. He will discuss changes in the industry over the last 90 years, linguistics, and make references to philosophies on aesthetics from the last 500 years without missing a beat in the conversation. He does all this without a hint of the elitism that one would expect from someone who you meet and five minutes later walk away from shaking your head mumbling something about how scary smart he is.
As with most designers, Nate has been influenced by almost everything he has seen, but when it comes down to how he approaches anything he decides to do, his strongest influence is his father. Nate’s father held a number of positions while Nate grew up. He adds, “My father was a carpenter in Kentucky. We then moved to Virginia where he got a job as a computer engineer. When he was hired, he had no experience working with computers, he learned on the fly, working with one of the largest companies on the eastern seaboard before quitting because it kept him away from his family. Over time, he would work as a woodworker, painter, minister and become recognized as a custom shoemaker for Period Correct Footwear.” This impressed on Nate two things: you have to enjoy what you are doing, not just take a job for money; and that you can learn to do whatever you are interested in.
Nate will tell you that as a kid, he was a nerd, a math geek specifically, finding a simplicity and beauty in numbers.
“In second grade, my best friend in the world was a Vietnamese refuge named Hong Vi. He barely spoke any English. Every day during recess, we would take our little paperback second grade math books and, instead of running around, we would sit outside and do the math. By the third or fourth week, we had completed the book.”
Math and science continued to be strengths throughout high school, but when Nate decided to attend college he was faced with a choice of what to focus on. He states, “ I was so bored by the time I went to college. I wasn’t motivated by a career path or money. I loved organic chemistry, but what was I going to do? Make additives for Doritos flavors? I didn’t want to do something that was easy or boring, so I figured that I could last four years learning how to make art; now that was engaging, interesting stuff.”
Drawing and painting held Nate’s interest, providing a blend of craft, technique and aesthetic that allowed him to think in new directions and apply new skills. It was during his undergraduate studies where he attended the Yale Summer session for Painting, that he started creating books. When he was introduced to Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale, he started to think about the structure of both art and language. He adds, “By the time I got to grad school I was bored with painting—did we really need more crap to hang on gallery walls? I found an insane love of language; so half my grad school transcript is in linguistics. I started thinking there has to be some language in painting that we can quantify; linguistics, semiotics and symbols fascinated me.” As his interest in language grew, he focused that into typography; not only the design of letterforms but also what it represented culturally and how the communication channel of print shaped modern language. Nate recalls, “I used to think that linguistics was this abstract, perfect thing. But it was these 16th century drunken toothless printers covered in grease, half of them illiterate who were copying letters making rules to set type. They determined how we use language today.”
Nate found a mix of interests in typography, language, geometric structure and context. As he transitioned into the workforce, he took on design work, gallery jobs and teaching. He threw himself into the study of typography and printing. Casting type and working on a letterpress offered a physical element that completely connected him to the design process. This is not to say Nate was by any means a Luddite, he looked at computer-based design as an integral tool for design, looking at it as an extension of the printing process. His studies could mean going to extremes to pursue an idea; at one point, this meant teaching himself Thai to create a font in that language. All this should have been a match made in heaven, if not for a little thing called the Internet.
Nathan was not the only one to see changes occurring in the design field; after all, computers had changed the graphic design industry already and the Internet was just fuel waiting to be thrown on the fire. Design, typography and the industry were set for a change; a change, Nate points out, is still happening. He adds, “Maybe I am too blue collar, but print design is based on elitism, and typography is the worst. Today, everybody with a computer has the tools to be a graphic designer and the industry has to face it (even though we don’t have to like it).”
He looks back at what Lester Beall pushed for in the 1960s: developing style guides for clients that allowed them to apply design once a project was complete and allowed the designer to move on. He comments, “We may need a new name. We became ‘graphic designers’ as a way to raise the status of the visual artist in the printing industry 90 years ago. We need to catch up. It is not just an intellectual activity, and it is now beyond an aesthetic activity.” Nate looks at open source coding for the Internet and web design in general as proof of this. “I came to web like so many from a print background, and you stupidly or naively treat it like this static thing that you have masterminded within a perfect rectangle. It’s antithetical to design that way for the web—it’s the worst thing you can do, because it works in a totally different way than ink on paper.”
Looking back on those 16th century printers, Nate understands that a new communication channel means new rules, for communication and graphic design. Coding offers Nathan the right or wrong foundation he used to find in mathematics, combined with solid design, which directly applies to a project’s needs in step with technological advances. Open source reapplies the pioneering spirit of shared knowledge that Nate often finds lacking in more traditional design. Nate adds, “When you program for the web you can immerse yourself in open source and work with anybody. All the power structure is removed and it comes down to what will and will not run.”
Having taught for over ten years, Nate looks at an industry that is evolving and encourages students to get back to the roots of design as they adapt technology. He shares, “I would love graphic design to be this beautiful academic pursuit, but it’s not. In the ‘real’ world, it is about meeting a client’s needs.“ The drive to balance craft and technology is something he will always push, making students aware that looking beyond the short-term goals of a project means acknowledging the past with an eye on the future. He looks at expansive font libraries with mixed feelings knowing the work that goes into them and understanding that the variations are important for students to understand; but he also sees them as a trap. Sometimes this means talking about limiting your type selection, and working within a limited library or moving into custom lettering. Nate adds, “There is no perfect font for what you want to do, if you know what you want, then draw it and scan it. It will be far better than spending three hours scrolling through font libraries on the web.” Above all, Nathan Matteson coaches students to focus on what they want to do, to think beyond the classroom, and to embrace the changes that they are a part of.
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