Collaborative designs
The Best Design Awards, held in Auckland on 13 November, are an annual showcase of excellence in graphic, spatial, product, interactive and motion design. Matthew Galloway was a contender for two prizes at next month’s prestigious Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Design Awards 2020.
- Matthew’s collaboration with award-winning musician Dudley Benson on the design and visual language for the album Zealandia earned him a place as a finalist in the Design Communication category; and
- His work with Louise Menzies for 2019, part of a Francis Hodgkins Fellowship exhibition at the Hocken, gained Matthew a place as a finalist in the Editorial and Books category.
Matthew is an Otago Polytechnic Lecturer in Design (Communication), specialising in Graphic Design. Also a practising designer, he collaborates with a broad range of clients, be they artists or commercial industry types.
“I like sharing ideas and collaborating with others. I really like how Otago Polytechnic supports me to invest in my own practice and research. It’s a feedback loop. I do design – and that informs my teaching. The experiences I gain from projects flows into my teaching. And I teach design – and that informs my design practice. In a symbiotic way, working with students, talking to them about design and trying to distil complex ideas helps me solidify certain ideas.”
Having previously won Bronze and Silver awards at the Best Design Awards, Matthew says he is proud to be recognised as a finalist. “But both these projects were the result of strong collaborations. Neither would exist if they were based on more traditional client-designer briefs.”