Matt is a creative guru. The quality and flair of his graphic design makes ham‑fisted amateurs, like myself, want to give up. Leave it to the professionals.
Matthew Journee
By day, I develop web application interfaces for SLI Systems. CoffeeScript and SASS, which help me to get the mechanics of web development out of the way of designing applications people are going to use because they want to, not because they have to. I’m also spending a lot of time with the awesome Bootstrap framework. SLI is a great company to work for, and the work provides plenty of interesting challenges. You should definitely work here.
Outside of work, I do as much theatre as I can. I’ve been a member of The Court Jesters (a late-night improv, comedy, and corporate entertainment company) since 2002, and you can often see me on stage in Scared Scriptless at The Court Theatre. Canterbury Children’s Theatre,
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with presenting my work in a way that will fascinate, inspire, and delight. I create original illustrated posters, flyers, advertisements, and websites for pretty much everything I’m involved in. As well as more conventional, ‘cartoony’ illustration, I like experimenting with minimalism and geometry: how many shapes do you need to recognise a particular film character, for example? Can I draw a troll with just two and a half circles? (Yes. Kind of.)
[Matt’s] code and coding practices are some of the cleanest and brightest I’ve seen.
Julian Suggate
There isn’t a lot I can show you here right now. Most of the interface design work I am involved with ends up behind password-protection on proprietary applications. Back when I was doing commercial web design, I did have a few examples I was really proud of, but it's been a while, and they’ve mostly moved on. The 2011 Christchurch earthquake even managed to find a way to put paid to one of my favourite sites: the site itself was fine, but the warehouse was demolished and they had nowhere to house their stock.
I'll try and find some time to curate something a little more germane; in the meantime, I suppose you could pick through my Github profile.
This screenshot is from Playtime, The Court Jesters to manage casting and statistics. Because we have a stable of around 20 performers, all of whom have busy schedules and commitments around the country, and two shows a week, we needed a way of keeping track of who is available for any given show. Any one of us can log in and mark down our availability on the calendar, and then the MC for that weekend’s shows can select a cast from the available players. This also gives us access to several years of statistics, all in a handy, responsive interface that is optimised for use on phones and tablets. Playtime uses Rails, Mongodb, Spine, Heroku.
…the suave Matt Powell cruises up to the mic… and boy does he nail it!
John Smythe, Theatreview
For more information about these shows, or to request a script, please email me.
I create, perform, and teach improvised theatre, and keep a little improv blog, which I update every day. I am available to come and teach your group, and have the following workshops ready to go:
So much of human communication is non-verbal, and yet we rely so heavily on words to shape our scene work. This workshop helps you unlock the body language you already know for use within your improvisation, leading to better connection with your scene partners, and more natural scenes.
Go beyond the burly-men-in-tutus comedy approach to improvised ballet, and discover ways to use ballet as a graceful and sophisticated storytelling tool, even with no prior training. Covers principles of balletic style, balletic mime, and sweet tricks like lifts and synchronised chorus work.
Even for beginning improvisors, directing is a very useful way to learn to analyse the structure and content of a scene, and to discover what inspires you as a performer. This workshop covers both directing and accepting direction gracefully, with an emphasis on practical application through directed scene work.
If you’d like to book me to teach any of these workshops, or you have something else in mind, please get in touch! I love working with new people.
Oh man, check out this guy’s pencil case!
Robbie Magasiva
Matt sent me a whole lot of squiggly lines and strange words and I pasted it into my site and everything looked better.
Emma Brittenden