Matt Owens
Co-Founder Athletics, Creator of the flash design playground Volume One
Professionally Combining Design
By Margaret Penney

Matt Owen

Matt Owens is the creator of Brooklyn, NY-based flash design playground, Volumeone (www.volumeone.com), a multi-disciplinary approach to the creation of visual solutions for print, motion and digital media. He is also a founding member of Athletics, (www.athleticsnyc.com) a multi-disciplinary design collective based in New York City. With Athletics, Matt has done graphic design, music videos, photography web development and more for clients such as The Sundance Channel, New York Magazine, Puma and Ecko Unlimited. He also completed interactive media, print and broadcast work for clients such as Nike, Sony, Blue Note Records and the New York Public Library.

Matt is also a partner in The Riviera, a small gallery in Brooklyn that focuses on up and coming artists, designers and photographers. He has spoken internationally about design, and his work has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, American Center for Design, the AIGA and multiple domestic and foreign design publications.

Q: What did you want to be when you grew up? An astronaut, a designer—or maybe something else?

Matt: I wanted to draw and possibly be an artist or a musician. I had been drawing since a very young age and was also into music. As I grew older, I ended up being in a band, doing record covers and flyers. I arrived at design through both art and music in a lot of ways.

Q: The experimental portion of volumeone.com is updated several times a year, featuring conceptual narratives and personal visual work. When I think of Volume One, I think of cracking open a fresh new book. Every issue you’ve made IS brand new and different. What is Volume One to you? Is it your design playground? What kinds of visual narrative explorations have taken place there?

Matt: I have been doing volumeone since 1997 and it continues to be a place where I can explore my own ideas outside of client work. In many ways, it is the same as sitting in my bedroom drawing when I was a kid, just on the computer and a bit more complex.. (more…)

Everyone knows the Blue Man Group. They are the sensational stage act with a fifteen-year run. Founded by three blue-painted extroverts performing on the streets of New York City, Blue Man Group now delivers their multi-sensory experience in NYC, Vegas, Boston, Chicago, and even Berlin (now that’s art). There are nearly 60 blue men performing today.
 

Like any growing organization, Blue Man Group has developed a visual identity to accomplish its goals. Unlike any other organization, that identity is based on "three enigmatic bald and blue characters." Sarah Seroussi talked to Michael Quinn, Artistic Director at Blue Man Group, about how this visual identity has evolved.

Q: Your overall identity at your site and in promotional materials revolves around the color blue. Why was blue originally chosen to be the skin color of the blue men?
 
Michael: Blue just felt right on all counts. All other colors had some sort of connotation that we didn’t want.  Green was alien or Martian, and it represents envy. Red is angry or has socio-political connections.  Black and white have racial connotations.  Yellow is jaundiced and sickly.  Blue was perfect.  It represents serenity, calmness.  It represents water, the stuff of life.  It is neutral, vibrant, and

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From Michael’s “Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena“

What to observe. Above, the tiles are moving left and right in alternating rows. In the ‘half-shifted condition’, the ‘mortar lines’ (the horizontal lines between the tiles) appear to slope alternately upward and downward. This gives the impression that the tiles are wedge-shaped. As seen when the tiles align or make up a chequerboard, the lines are actually parallel, and all tiles are perfectly square and of the same size. So during the movement, the illusion “comes and goes”.

It’s not hard to persuade a designer that color matters. But persuading Fortune 500 companies? You might be surprised. Color consultant Leatrice Eiseman has carved out a major career in helping companies "make correct choices in colors that sell." 

Author of The Color Answer Book, Colors for Every Mood, and the Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color, Leatrice jets around the country consulting with businesses on color strategy, forecasting color trends, and raising the profile of color in general. Scott Chappell cornered her with some questions.

Leatrice Eiseman

Q: In your seminars you talk a lot about the psychological and emotional aspects of color. Do you think the meaning and psychology of color is a learned behavior or are we genetically predisposed to have specific responses to different colors?
 
Leatrice: Both of the above!  Most of our response to color is learned through our cultural background–however, there is evidence that points to a collective memory or prehensile retention that creates more than a psychological effect.  For example, how can we not respond to red?  Our eye is inevitably drawn to it as it represents symbolically fire and bloodshed–warning signals that humans have always responded to. That is stored in the memory bank, and passed on from generation to generation, so that today red creates a physiological effect of increased adrenalin flow, a quickening of heart rate and pulse.
 
Q: Where should decisions about color palette occur in the design process?
 
Leatrice: Way up at the top.  I believe that the essential design should come first

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