Matt Walsh

Stats: Hometown: White Plains, N.Y. Previous Jobs: R/GA, Senior Interaction Designer Recent Projects: (2009) Burger King "Whopper Sacrifice"and OldNavy Weekly; (2008) Microsoft "I'm A PC" and VW Routan BabyMaker 3000. Career Landmarks: "Simpsonize Me" for Burger King in 2007; VWFeatures.com and the 2006 launch and the 2007 redesign of VW.com; NikeID version two redesign in 2005 with R/GA. What are you looking forward to, work-wise? I'm really looking forward to our experience designers contributing beyond digital. At CP+B we are branching in some exciting new directions with our product innovation group as well as our public works group. Both have approached me about getting our experience designers more involved in their initiatives, and applying the same user-centric design approach to the experiences they're creating. The mere prospect of that is enough to get me really excited about the possibilities to make the work even better across the board. Add to that a roster of forward-thinking clients pushing us to innovate across all consumer touch points. This movement is a big part of the reason why we've recently renamed our group "Experience Design." The term is so much broader and really frees us to design groundbreaking experiences, regardless of the technology or arena. What are you excited about in the wider world of creativity? With the evolution of the mobile web, graphical bar codes, new interactive projection systems, wearables, and a host of other technological innovations, we are now in a world where digital interactivity is possible anywhere at any time. This is mind blowing when you think of the opportunities that it opens up for a two way interaction in arenas that have only ever been passive to this point. We are now in a world where the user can choose when, where and how they want to interact with your brand, and technology is enabling us to capitalize on that consumer's interests whenever and wherever it pops up. What are you most inspired by? One day Jeff Benjamin, our executive interactive creative director, suggested a team use a kid's science museum as inspiration for a project. Kid's science museums are amazing in their ability to create experiences that are larger than life, magical, mystical almost. And yet they're also tactile. They beg to be touched and played with, and you don't feel like you're going to break anything. That mix of magic and approachability is something we strive for in our executions. Most of the time we've gotten there through focus and simplicity, which leads to my second inspiration, "Deceptive Simplicity." A lot of the ideas we come up with often have a lot of complexity to them: concepts, technology, structure, designs, messaging, etc. A big part of our job as experience designers is to take all of this complexity and make it invisible to the user. Our products and sites need to feel simple and intuitive to engage with. This is no easy task, and the quest to capture it provides inspiration for me on most projects I work on.

Matt Walsh

Featured Stories