Touching Base with Matthew Flint
Hi Matt! You’re in Sicily at the moment but where did you grow up?
That’s right. I’m currently in a very small, quiet and lovely town in Sicily, but I grew up in Penge in south London. It’s definitely somewhere I appreciate more as an adult than I did as a child.
What did you imagine doing as a job when you were young?
I loved drawing as a kid. I was always doodling. My favourite thing to draw was side profiles of cars – I wanted to be a car designer. Not sure what happened as I grew up – it didn’t transpire into a career but I guess that’s par for the course for most people’s childhood ambitions. Eventually, I navigated towards more art and graphic design stuff and decided to go into the branding world.
Did you go to university?
I did but I spent a year in industry first. I was an in-house graphic designer for Avery UK, a printable label manufacturer based in Maidenhead. Being an in-house designer is very different from the glamour of working for a big branding agency. It’s a lot more grounded and a lot more formulaic. During that year, it shifted my perspective towards doing something a bit more technical and I started thinking about university.
Why did you decide to study product design at Bournemouth?
I had done product design at A Level and enjoyed that. My school had a really good product design department, with new workshop facilities. And Bournemouth was great for product design. The people on the course were amazing, and we built a tight knit community. There wasn’t the competitiveness you sometimes hear about from other universities. I got involved with the organisation of the end-of-year design shows, using my graphic design background. We also did a placement year as part of the degree, which I spent at a lighting design company. I didn’t see myself in lighting design at the time but it really honed my skills for going into industry.
What was your final year project?
I developed a hands-on teaching aid to teach secondary school students about the concept of e-waste. Education is one of the biggest root causes of e-waste. We’re not taught to understand what’s in our devices, what happens to them when they’re thrown away, and the impact of the materials when they’re not properly disposed of. The teaching aid was almost like a simulation phone that kids could take apart during a lesson plan. It helped them understand the materials that go into the phones, learn about where they came from, where they might go when they’re disposed of, and the health impacts for the communities affected by e-waste.
How did your career develop after university?
I moved straight back home after university to look for my first post-university role. Within a few months I came across TG0. I remember looking at the website and being really interested in the interactions and various projects they were working on at the time. The variety of applications – from medical to automotive – was incredibly exciting to someone like me who was coming straight out of university. Those are all the things that a budding product designer would want to work on. So I applied and I joined the team officially four years ago.
What do you enjoy most about working at TG0?
The variety of projects is great. Although I do work on a lot of automotive projects, which is great for the kid inside me who just wanted to draw cars. I’m also doing a lot of work on our European Innovation Council (EIC) projects. We have three at the moment – one is automotive specific, another is around joystick interactions, and the last one is in haptic development. We received funding from the EIC to develop and widen our capabilities in all three areas. Aside from the projects themselves, I love working with this team. Everyone’s really friendly and we hang out a lot outside work. We’re friends rather than co-workers at this point.
You’ve just finished a Master’s in Service Design Innovation at Loughborough University. How did you find that experience?
It’s been somewhat of a departure from being a design engineer. This course covered topics such as organisational development, service design strategies within public services and the private sector, and design research methodologies. My dissertation was looking at how to improve the collection of lived experience data within a community mental health system. I worked with Hackney Council to do that, which gave me better access to the data. It was an amazing experience, and I’m proud of what I achieved, but I’m relieved to be finished. It’s nice to get back to doing one thing and not having to split my brain across work and study. Coming to Sicily has been a bit of a post-Master's detox. I am still working though!
Do you have any hobbies?
I love to climb and do bouldering as a hobby. I started going to climbing gyms regularly about two years ago, and I love the combination of problem solving and technique. Quite a few friends from work have been coming along too. That aside, I enjoy cycling and will still do some graphic design when I have the time, drawing posters and things like that.
Tell us one thing your colleagues wouldn’t know about you
I play the guitar and bass, and do quite a bit of recording. On the weekends I’ll quite often stay up until the early hours, tinkering around with tracks. That’s something not a lot of people know.
