Universal Everything was founded by Matt Pyke in 2004, after 8 years at influential studio The Designers Republic where he designed music, retail, fashion, architecture, advertising and broadcast projects worldwide.
Universal Everything is a multidisciplinary
creative studio, with members worldwide collaborating on web, film, print, fashion, interior and curation projects for an international range of clients including
Nokia, Nike, MTV, Adidas, Samsung and Warp Records
Since its birth, Universal Everything has
exhibited in Barcelona, Paris, Hong Kong and New York
and has featured in numerous publications worldwide
including Wired (USA) / Creative Review (UK) / Idea Magazine (Japan) / StashDVD (USA) / Chinavisual (China) / Refill (Australia)
From what I have seen on Matt / Universal Everything, he seems to work from his house in Sheffield, collaborating with designers/animators/illustrators/coders etc from all over the globe for worldwide clients. Matt is profiled on the Apple Pro Site and from this an insight can be gained into how he works (obvoiusly most of this film consists of Apple hyping, but I dare say he gets lots of free stuff in return). His client list is in the main those huge name brands that are seen cropping up elsewhere except he does work from a normal looking house in Sheffield. The public face of Universal Everything looks like it's this big studio, and in reality it is in terms of the services they can provide, but modern technolgy enables UE to operate as a virtual multidisciplinary set-up. This is where I begin to see parallels between what he is doing and my previous work as a record producer and remixer:
I remixed over 100 tracks over a 13 year period. Many of these acts would have been underground artists or mere ephemeral pop acts, however in that time I was half of a team which remixed amongst many others: U2 (for Island Records UK), The Killers (Island Records NYC) and Underworld (for V2). Every one of these remixes were made in recording studio near Wrexham, across the road from one of the finest fish and chip shops in the UK. I can see now that the same kind of thing could be done in the design world if the work is good enough. As a younger man I have certainly been ambitious and willing enough to make things happen, but I could throw all of my energy into that kind of thing then. The whole idea about retraining and returning to education was so that I didn't have to live for work to the same extent. Maybe the design world isn't so different from the music business!
I am going to attempt to speak with Matt Pyke and try and get him to answer a few brief questions.
My sensible short to mid-term ambition is to get a proper job with an employer, as self employment can be tough (I have been self employed since 1992), however I can also see that freelancing could be viable at some stage, possibly a bit fourther down the road. I must therfore find what kind of start up grants are available. (although I already run my own limited company, so I could simply trade from that).
The only other concern is that I definitly have it in my plan to do the 3rd year and gain a BA as one of my career options could be as a lecturer. This would mean I wouldn't be leaving NWSAD until summer 2009, and any grants available now could have changed by then.
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