Inspiration Profile - Matt Smith

There is a new magazine coming out soon. It is called COMMON and it is founded by today's Inspiration Profile, designer Matt Smith.
COMMON will be a biannual magazine for those "with a creative bent and an inquisitive eye. It is founded on the desire to explore and document the basics of a rich life –the mix of people, work, leisure and everyday curiosities that inspire and fuel us." 
The first issue will feature the likes of Murray Crane, Alexandra Owen and Jamie McLeallan. 
It will be an interesting magazine and you can support COMMON by helping it get published - have a look here.

Matt Smith

COMMON magazine - coming soon.

Name: Matt Smith

What do you do: Industrial Design, but more like furniture design, props design, branding and branded interiors. Since 2002.

Where do you live: Wellington, New Zealand

What are you working on:

• Just finished the branding for Six Barrel Soda Co.
• Halfway through the café/factory fit out for Six Barrel.
• Finishing props design on The Hobbit.
• Publishing issue #1 of Common Magazine.  

Monterey Cafe, Newtown

Kim Crawford

Who/what inspires me: Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Thelonious Monk, The Lounge Lizards, Bon Iver, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski, Mast Brothers, Aesop, Best Made Company.

I work best: With a beer or wine beside me.

What I do when I’m stuck for inspiration: Go back to the beginning, understand the issue, then focus on a detail and radiate out from there.

The best advice I have been given is: Creative – do it. Business – 20% of your product is 80% of your sales.

My latest discovery is: Fly fishing. I have an old FJ40 truck and a beautiful fly fishing rod and don’t use them enough for my liking. This past weekend I didn’t see a single fish in the river so I swam instead.

BEAST rug

Ace chair.

Books that I get inspiration from: Kerouac, Hemingway, Bukowski, Kundera and Carver I enjoy, I’m not sure if they inspire me but they keep me going. All male and chauvinistic for some reason.

Magazines that inspire me: Again, not inspiration so much but I enjoy looking at the local ones like Urbis and HOME and larger ones like Monocle, Habitus and Wallpaper. Visual eye candy mostly. Often I get depressed looking at magazines and the amount of design already out there, and how terrible or unoriginal it is.

Blogs that I enjoy: Varies all the time, as I write this I have Reform and Wit & Delight open on my computer.

My favourite room at home is: My bedroom, ever since I was a kid I’ve smiled when it’s time to sleep. I normally have a sore brain at the end of the day so sleeping makes me happy. I often wake in the night with more ideas and just lie there and think some more.

My office is: Anywhere my sketchbook or laptop is.  Often cafes and bars.

What am I looking forward to: The next project.

Industrial Cabinet

Sacrificial chair

All photographs used with permission from Matt Smith.