All in a Day's Work: Matt Lamont

On Friday 27 February, Matt Lamont opened up his Bradford studio for a tour, talk and workshop for Northern Design Festival. It was my first time in Bradford, I didn't see much of the city as I headed straight to Out of Place Studio, nevertheless I was mighty impressed.

Immediately I felt a relaxed energy at Matt’s studio, the open plan space with arched ceiling and stained glass windows was so beautiful. At first I was a bit reluctant to touch the print that was laid out across the tables, maybe I was a bit overwhelmed, there was so much colour, print and stunning publications. The shelves along the walls were stacked with issues of IDEA mag, Thames & Hudson publications and Graphic design theory books - it was a lot to take in didn't quite have anywhere to start.

Matt started his talk by rolling out one of his recent ebay finds - a long piece of print that illustrated the history of the world. A pretty fitting opening, it felt like we were going on a journey after that ha! Matt talked us through his expansive client list and his day to day runnings of the studio, prompting the inevitable question from the audience: how does he find the time?

Matt runs Design Reviewed, an online archive that hosts around 10,000 printed artefacts from across the world - a documentation of visual culture from the last century. If you are ever lost for inspiration and sick of the Pinterest algorithm regurgitating the same poster then this is the place for you.

The online archive is filtered by decade starting from the 1900s, by format and even some pieces filtered by theme. If you want to look at all the pieces by a particular designer you can do that too! Matt photographs/ scans all the images of the artefacts for the site on a daily basis. The amount of work and detail in Design Reviewed is so impressive and kudos to Matt for all the dedication, you can tell he loves doing it. This personal project is such an important tool for documenting graphic design across the world. What a rewarding project. You can subscribe to the Newsletter here and you can become a member to support the archive and to read Matt’s design articles exploring the historical context of the artefacts.

Alongside the archive Matt is also the director of Out of Place design studio and works with a team of designers, developers and project managers across the arts, culture and charities sectors. Despite the scale of his projects, he remains refreshingly open and generous in sharing his research and discoveries. At one point during the session he even climbed a small ladder to retrieve a Polish graphic design book for an audience member, encouraging everyone to explore the archive and handle the materials themselves. After the talk I was in amongst the print taking loads of photos and colour palette references. Matt set us all a task to find a piece of design we liked and reimagine it as a poster. The exercise was a perfect way to reflect on everything we had just absorbed and echoed Matt’s emphasis on research, curiosity and the value of understanding design history.

I was so pleased that Matt was up for being part of All in a Day’s Work, thank you Matt. Also thank you to Elle who photographed the event on the day.

Name:
Matt Lamont

Role:
Director, Designer and Collector

Summary of your work:  
A variation of design, web development and public speaking blended together in a soup of design history. I’m a collector, a researcher, a bit of everything really but somehow balance many hats. 

Starting the day

What do you enjoy seeing on your to-do list? Pint Time. But that's only when the work is complete or quickly before the school run. Got to squeeze in them little moments when you can!

What in your studio / space inspires you?  My 10,000 artefacts of design history. Rack and stack of magazines, books and posters. I need to find more time to really soak them in, but I am currently producing a book with Unit Editions and Thames and Hudson, more on that soon ;)

The working day

Why are you based in the North & is it important to what you do? Always been in the North, Bradford to be precise, green spaces, cheaper rent and mortgages, steady and a place I call home. There’s a sense of grit and realness, less pretentiousness and general localness (if that's even a word).

What do you think is the current state of the creative / design industry in the North? I am a little disconnected from the industry but the people I meet seem positive and optimistic, and I’m seeing so much fantastic work when I do the rounds. I’m super inspired by the work of local agencies and my team, there seems to be a lot of events and ace people making things happen lately!

End of the day

Where do you find community and connection outside of work? Design events (when I can attend), Thursday pints and online calls with some amazing folk

What does a satisfyingly complete day look like? Productively busy, long lunch, an inbox of only 30 emails left to tackle and the headspace to enjoy lego time with the kids

Day after day:

What symbolises the North for you? The spirit of the North East communities, full of pride, resilience and rich history. I love the North for the non pretence, the realness and the relaxed friendliness of people up here. The Northern landscapes are incredible too, with the coast so close and vast, and the heritage and history of sites like Hadrian's Wall, Mining communities with stories to tell and the beautiful architecture of Newcastle with the engineers of the Victorian era creating Grey Street and the famous bridges that are utterly beautiful!

What are you watching on telly? Ooh I love a beautifully shot series, I'm a bit of a fuss pot and love to study the lighting in a show, so most recently Pluribus filled me with visual joy! The carefully constructed colour schemes were like that of Severance, which is another fave, where they stick to a three colour template for each scene. I also loved Waiting For the Out, which was one of those shows where you shout ‘noooo don’t do it’ and sit on the edge of your seat. It was incredibly well acted. A really classy production with characters who stay with you for some time after.

A piece of everyday design that you adore? I love the design of my Russel Hobbs 1980’s style kettle. It's stainless steel, simple and so pleasing to look at. Oh and my (apple) macs, yummy, yum.

Spending the day at Out of Place Studio with Matt Lamont felt like a real privilege. Being surrounded by so much design history was both grounding and inspiring. It was a reminder that great ideas often come from taking the time to look back and research what is already out there. It’s not often you get the chance to see design history up close like that. I left Bradford full of references and a lot of appreciation for the work behind Design Reviewed.

And thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, LMK your thoughts and stay tuned for the next editions of All in a Day's Work by Millie Jobson