Matter Design Co
Matter
Matter helps organizations identify what truly matters. We turn ideas into brands, communications, and digital experiences built to earn attention and inspire action. Strategy, imagination, and experience shape everything we do.
Christian Simms is the founder and Creative Director of Matter Design. For more than three decades, he has helped organizations uncover the idea at the heart of who they are and express it with clarity, character and ambition.His work is guided by a simple belief: design is not decoration. It is a way of thinking. At its best, design makes the complicated clear, the ordinary memorable and the important impossible to ignore.An alumnus of Georgetown University and Pratt Institute, Christian brings a thoughtful, idea-driven approach to every engagement.
Negro Leagues
Developed on behalf of Major League Baseball, the Negro Leagues logo celebrates the extraordinary legacy of Black baseball and the players whose talent, determination, and style helped shape the game.
Citigroup
While at Pentagram Design, Christian Simms secured Citigroup as a client and led the early identity work for Citibank Private Bank. That work helped lay the foundation for the development of Citibank’s now ubiquitous red-arch identity.
Felissimo
Felissimo is a Japanese lifestyle company known for bringing imagination and delight to everyday objects. MATTER developed a distinctive visual identity and packaging system designed to give the brand a clear, memorable presence.
BoardNext
BoardNext is a leadership advisory committee of Women Corporate Directors focused on helping organizations build stronger, more effective boards. MATTER developed a distinctive visual identity designed to communicate clarity, confidence, and forward movement.
Open Dialog
Open Dialog magazine explored the emerging role of information management at the dawn of the digital age. MATTER developed the publication’s editorial concept, visual identity and design, combining illustration, typography and information graphics to give complex ideas a distinctive visual voice.
K+A
K+A provides geotechnical engineering services for complex infrastructure and development projects. MATTER developed a distinctive visual identity that reflects the firm’s technical precision, engineering expertise, and connection to the built environment.
Concepts Salon
Concepts Salon was a high-end Santa Fe beauty salon catering to an exclusive clientele. MATTER developed a distinctive visual identity that combined elegance, warmth and a distinctly Southwestern sensibility.
Profile
Profile was a recruitment initiative for Pratt Institute’s graduate Communication Science program. Conceived and funded by Christian Simms, Profile brought together leading New York photographers to create a distinctive publication showcasing the program and its students. Its success led to Simms’s promotion to Associate Professor at the Institute.
Harvard Opportunes
Harvard’s student acappella group, the Opportunes, commissioned Christian Simms to create the poster for its annual holiday concert. The resulting design transformed musical notes into falling snow, creating a simple visual expression of music and the season.
The Ideal Home
The Ideal Home: 1900–1920 was a landmark exhibition at the American Craft Museum exploring the formative years of twentieth-century American craft. Christian Simms created the exhibition poster, combining simplified forms, period-inspired typography and a warm Arts and Crafts palette to evoke the character of the era.
Gotta Go
Gotta Go is an innovative cat carrier designed to serve two purposes: a secure case for travel and, once Whiskers reaches his destination, a convenient litter box. MATTER developed the name and visual identity for this unusually practical pet product.
Brand Colorado
Christian Simms led the branding of the State of Colorado on behalf of the state’s Office of Economic Development. The statewide program created a unified identity for Colorado by providing its cities and communities with tools to strengthen their own brands, promote tourism and support economic development.
Info To Go
As a Harvard student, Claudia Truitt-Kahn founded Info To Go, a research and information service created for fellow students at the college. Christian Simms developed the name and visual identity, using an image of Claudia on her bicycle, reminiscent of the famous photograph of Albert Einstein riding on the Princeton campus. The identity was designed to capture the idea of information delivered quickly and directly.