Designer Matthew Remphrey of Adelaide, Australia-based Parallax Design, was born in Adelaide in 1970. In 1991, he received a Bachelor of Visual Communication in illustration from the University of South Australia. After working as a freelance designer/illustrator for three years, he joined Ian Kidd Design in Adelaide, where he eventually became the creative manager. In 2001, he left to form his own design practice.
Matthew’s work has been published and highly awarded both nationally and internationally. He's currently the chair of the Advisory Committee to the South Australian School of Art and Design, University of South Australia and the immediate past president of the South Australian chapter of AGDA and immediate past vice president of AGDA’s national council.
Matthew lives in Adelaide, Australia with his wife, Abra, his 4-year-old daughter Grace and 1-year-old son Harrison.
10.01.08
Constraints And Clear Objectives
If you have a degree in what field is it? Bachelor of Visual Communication in illustration.
Which designer (or design studio), other than yours, do you most admire? Andrew Ashton at Studio Pip & Co.—great work and a wonderful sense of the absurd; Frost Design—since Vince stormed into Australia three years ago he really hasn’t put a foot wrong and his work has raised the bar for Australian designers; Wolff Olins—no other big global design company consistently produces such inspiring and radical work.
What’s the strangest request you’ve received from a client? To design their personal signature, complete with a die-cut credit card sized plastic template so they could trace the same signature every time.
If you weren’t working as a designer what would you be doing? Possibly working as a butcher. I’ve never met an unhappy butcher.
What well-known identity is most desperately in need of a redesign? Qantas. They’ve just undergone an evolutionary redesign of their identity; how I wish they hadn’t. In place of a timeless iconic mark, Australia’s air carrier now has a clumsily drawn cartoon on its tail.
From where do your best ideas originate? From the best briefs. I really relish receiving a tight, well-written brief—one with constraints and clear objectives. It allows me to direct my focus. If we don’t get a great brief from our client, we’ll write it ourselves.
How do you overcome a creative block? Basically I try to do something other than the project I’m having trouble with. This could be moving onto another project or getting out of the office for a walk. I find creative block usually comes from trying too hard to force a solution—usually borne by a looming deadline. Putting a problem job down for a couple of days allows ideas to form and bubble-up in the subconscious, while you’re not even aware of thinking about them.
What’s your dream project (not client, but project)? Any project with an interesting problem, an interested client and a tight brief. For the past couple of years we have been busy with wine packaging, so a big juicy signage project would be good. Grass is always greener...
Do you have creative outlets other than graphic design? Music—both listening to and playing loud, raucous guitar.
What’s your approach to balancing work and life? I have two children, a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old. I’d rather spend evenings and weekends with them and my wife than sitting in my studio, so I work hard to allow this. I also have a lot of interests outside of work—travel, music, art, film, reading, cooking—which I feel informs the work done in the studio. We all try to keep office hours between 8.30 and 6.00—there’s much more to life than work, and our work is better for having outside interests. Having said that, when deadlines loom, you’ll often see the studio lights burning late.
What product/gadget can you not live without? The photocopier. I work in a very hands-on way—scaling elements on the photocopier, pasting them up and recopying them. When I’m happy, I transfer this to the computer. When you work solely on-screen, you can’t get a real feel for scale or placement or, for that matter ,what the piece feels like to hold.
What's your favorite quote? “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” —Oscar Wilde
Do you have any advice for people just entering the profession? Use the first years of your career (when you really don’t have other things in your life to get in the way) to work really long and hard. Listen. Ask lots of questions. Be prepared to have a go at anything—opportunity strikes at odd times. Learn as much as you can, as the first stage of one’s career is like an apprenticeship. Too many new design graduates think they know everything (perhaps they do and I’m just getting old). Also, get involved with your industry through professional associations, etc. You can learn a lot from your peers, and it can be good for networking.
What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started your career? How to ask the right questions and how to realise when you’ve had a good idea.