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8/11/2019 Bambach Formstorm
1/3
What is your culture? How were you socialized? How did your upbringing, the place
you came from, your education contribute to your life choices as an adult? How have
they affected the values and proclivities you hold and practice as a designer?
Formstorm #1What defines you as a person?
Matthew Bambach
project title project description
designer
Upbringing. I was born in Detroit, Michigan,
and grew up in a super safe and somewhat
affluent suburb called Troy. Michiganders
in general are hard working, down to earth
and proud of where theyre from. My family
was no exception, believing family first,
no questions asked. Both of my biological
parents taught me empathy and compassion,
and were noble enough to keep in close
contact with each other just for the sake
of our sanity. Theyre very supportive of
anything I want to do, always lending an ear
when I need someone to hear me out.
In middle school I developed an interest in
sports logos and sports broadcast graphics.
Most of my time after school was spent in
Microsoft Word and Paint, designing flyers for
sports match ups, and logos and uniforms for a
street hockey league that never materialized.
I also started playing around with type, clipart,
sounds and transitions in PowerPoint.
Early on in high school, my parents installed
an updated version of PowerPoint with lots
of new cool animations, so I started making
simulated sports broadcast graphics with
realistic-looking transitions and music.I spent ages getting all the timing perfect while
keeping my project a total secret (I wanted it
to be my thing). Consequently, I chose to attend
Michigan State with hopes of pushing my
interest in broadcast graphics academically.
These interests in motion design and broadcast
graphics stick with me to this day.
Getting into design. I can track my visual
interests back to my wee days when I used to
watch the Weather Channel - I would standin front of the T.V. announcing the weat her
- and the Preview Channel for the graphics.
I was obsessed with computers, video games,
and loved putting together a map of the U.S.,
memorizing all the states in the process.
Individuality, personality, self-expression.
When I headed to Michigan State to start my
film degree, I was introduced to punk music
by new friends. These were the first people
to challenge me to question and think for
myself. In my hometown, I had been super
shy, sheltered, conservative, and pretty
religious (out of fear). They totally blew that
out of the water. My friends were shamelessly
themselves in a way that was inspiring to me.
As I got to know them better, I began to figure
out who I was and what I liked.
My book design course in undergrad opened up
doors to my artistic expression of personality.
I was going through a frustrated period where
I was reflecting about what I wanted to do with
my life, and created a zine about my bucket
list that helped articulate and figure out my
thoughts. Ultimately, someone anonymously
borrowed it, made copies and distributed it
all over another city. This is, to me, one of my
greatest achievements as a design er.
Now, more than ever, I have no problem
pouring myself out for all to see, whether it be
through my behavior or artistic expression.
8/11/2019 Bambach Formstorm
2/3
What is your culture? How were you socialized? How did your upbringing, the place
you came from, your education contribute to your life choices as an adult? How have
they affected the values and proclivities you hold and practice as a designer?
Formstorm #1What defines you as a person?
Matthew Bambach
project title project description
designer
DIY & community. My dad is a self-made
man, through and through. Growing up with
virtually nothing, he worked his butt off to
become one of the best paper salesmen in
Michigan. As such, he raised my brother and
me to be frugal, pragmatic and hard-working.
We grew to appreciate what we had and take
nothing for granted. By extension, I am a
firm believer in constant self-improvement,
having worked hard to create lots of cool new
opportunities for myself, while also addressing
personal issues through intrapersonal
interventions, therapy, mindfulness
and meditation.
When I lived outside of NYC for an
internship I read Our Band Could Be Your Life,
which showed me what was possible when
convicted people worked together for a larger
purpose. I went to zine fairs, DIY punk shows
and art galleries and came back home with
a totally new perspective. The bare-bones,energetic, intelligent and collective nature of
DIY was my new-found religion. I continue to
hold these tenets, playing in bands that rent
vans and self-book tours, hosting b asement
shows, making use of whatever materials
and resources I have artistically and also
maintaining a modest, clean, minimalist
aesthetic within much of my design work.
It was not until my university years that I
started to learn more about the ills of society,
past and present, and read into what goes
on behind closed doors. Punk rock is aninherently political art form, so I have been
surrounded by all sorts of progressive and
defiant ideologies since I started participating.
The Toronto punk scene exists in an especially
hyper-aware bubble, having internally
addressed a multitude of social issues even in
the past few years. While this can sometimes
cause a lot of in-fighting between people who
are basically on the same side, it has given me
a lot of perspective about my privilege.
As a result, the music, art and design that I
gravitate towards ranges from having a direct,
practical message to a weird, tongue-and-cheek,
controversial one. I have a lot of resentment
towards certain social conventions, which is
reflected through the more outlandish stuff
that I make.
Sense of rebellion. I grew up with my mom
struggling with her finances as an overworked
and underpaid social worker in and around
Detroit. So, from an early age, I have always
been aware of how government and the
system has failed us in many ways.
8/11/2019 Bambach Formstorm
3/3
What is your culture? How were you socialized? How did your upbringing, the place
you came from, your education contribute to your life choices as an adult? How have
they affected the values and proclivities you hold and practice as a designer?
Formstorm #1What defines you as a person?
Matthew Bambach
project title project description
designer
Information graphics & visual storytelling.
In an early intro to photo class at Michigan
State, our professor had a bunch of people
from across the university present their work.
Karl Gude, who was the information graphics
director at Newsweekfor 7 years, presented
about Adobe programs and infographics.
I was absolutely hooked. I emailed him to
chat, and we sat down to talk about what I was
interested in. He outlined everything I needed
to do for the rest of school on a Post-It note and
I followed it. I am a very analytical person,
so I enjoy the left brain/right brain pursuit of
critically analyzing and simplifying difficult
material through experimenting with design.
Karl ended up looping me into a few 3D
science visualization projects that involved
working with physicists to visually explain
the concepts behind particle accelerators. The
coolest project involved travelling to CERN in
Switzerland to help work on animations for a
planetarium show explaining the Large Hadron
Collider and particle physics to MSU students.
During my final year, I took one year of
thematic cartography, which I absolutely loved.
We learned all the super academic bits and bobs
of cartographic theory and data visualization.
Activism. Shortly before I graduated, one
of my professors introduced me to design
thinking and social design, and my senseof benevolence took over my creative psyche.
I embarked on a year-long independent
thesis project that explored social and
participatory design through directly
connecting with the campus community. As I
see it, this is a manifestation of my belief in
the power of people to work towards positive
change, which again is a central tenet of
punk rock and the DIY ethos.
This endeavor was one of the most fulfilling
projects I have ever worked on as a designer
because I got to synthesize w hat the public
wanted and work to develop a solution
using design. I won a research award for
the project, and at that point I knew exactly
what I wanted to pursue and that graduate
school was definitely in my future.