Meet Matthew Miller, the creative on a mission to revive the Earth one design at a time

There’s a kind of genuine sincerity that seems to emanate from everything Ohio-based graphic designer Mathew Miller gets his hands on. For example, opening the files that Matthew sent us, I’m greeted with filenames like LovePeaceJoy.png, KeepRising.png and, my personal favourite, LessAssholes.png. When he says that he “really wants people to feel a sense of connection and beauty from my work", it’s immediately obvious that he’s not paying lip service to some ideal of what a contemporary designer should be. He really means it.

Matthew grew up as a self-described “military brat” – a child of serving military personnel. This meant that, only two years after being born in the “good ole panhandle of Florida, USA”, he was shipped off to Germany, where his father was stationed. After he and his sister were enrolled in a Christian American school, Matthew started to foster his graphic sensibilities from any visual stuff he could find. Although, he admits that “graphic design wasn’t something that happened all at once for me, it was a slow burn". From movies watched at his babysitter’s house to cartoons, he especially remembers Sailor Moon and Studio Ghibli films. “I think my creative genesis was that film,” he says of Studio Ghibli’s celebrated 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro. “There is a stillness in Hayao Miyazaki films that is at once comforting and sad and simultaneously full of love.”

Just like the Oscar-winning director, Matthews’s work is also charged with an undeniable romanticism and reverence for the natural world. The parallels don’t stop there, as they both contribute to the big picture of sustainability in their own ways. Matthew, for instance, solely works with climate activism non-profits – a decision that he says he “sort of just fell into, funnily enough”. But he’s taken the position up with vigour. Pick any of his designs at random and you’re likely to see soft tones and invitingly warm textures adorn blooming flowers and pastoral backgrounds. He also credits his “design awakening” to a handful of other things: his childhood best friend convincing him to transfer to a collegiate arts high school in Oklahoma, plus the work of audio-visual artist Mitchell Davis and early noughts street style blogs.

But before Matthew answered his calling as a designer, he did a brief and unenjoyable stint as a virtual assistant in 2020. “That pivot was one of the most fortuitous choices that I’ve made in my life,” he says of the decision to take control of his own creative direction. As an LGBTQ+ creative, control is paramount, and so he felt lucky to be in "a space where people care about people". He adds: “It gave me this agency and confidence that I was severely lacking when I wasn’t really directing myself to something I truly care about.” What followed was a call with Max Moinian and Sydney Hass of the online platform Future Earth regarding a callout for a freelance designer. “That was a stepping stone to actualisation for me in the design space,” Matthew notes. And he just so happened to "genuinely connect" with Make Meadows' mission. He adds that “Because of that moment I now only and discriminately work with clients that share my values and have a unique vision that stretches beyond themselves”.