Bambach Formstorm

8/11/2019 Bambach Formstorm

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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.


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Matthew Bambach


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.


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Matthew Bambach


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.

Documents

Bambach Formstorm