Matt Dixon

Matt is an interdisciplinary artist, creative director, and educator dedicated to telling important stories through emerging technologies. A graduate of the Royal College of Art with a distinguished career in the arts and culture sector, he has led high-impact creative campaigns as Creative Director for global clients including Sony Music, David Bowie, Working Title Films, the National Theatre, and the Royal Opera House.
With over 25 years of industry experience, Matt has held teaching positions at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at institutions such as the RCA, Central Saint Martins (UAL), and Falmouth University, where he played a key role in leading the BA Graphic Design programme for five years. Following his leadership of the BA Graphic Design course at the University of Kent, he was appointed Director of Studies (Design) within the School of Arts & Architecture, overseeing BA Graphic Design, Spatial & Interior Design, and Foundation Programmes.
Matt brings extensive expertise in academic strategy, curriculum development, teaching innovation, and student employability. He is passionate about forging meaningful connections between the creative industries and higher education.
As a mentor and educator, Matt has been credited as lead tutor for 11 D&AD New Blood Pencil winners and has supported students in securing YCN, ISTD, and Creative Conscience awards. He also holds a PGCHE. 

Matt’s current research focuses on fostering dialogue between ecosystems, aiming to reveal the unseen and serve as a catalyst for empathetic engagement with urgent narratives. 

He is particularly interested in how the absurd and disorienting can amplify questions of meaning in a universe that feels increasingly disconnected from our conscious experience. His work also explores the use of field recording and site-specific sonic inquiry to document environmental impact and its effects on communities.

Matt’s project, Rare_Earth, an immersive sound and visual presentation for IRCAM, Paris (March 2023), sought to make visible the entanglement of technology with the natural ecology from which it draws its source material. In this work, viewers witness a real-time mapping of the 17 rare-earth elements—an analysis that, alongside associated data, directly informs a soundscape generated through modular and granular synthesis. Accompanying this is an absurdist narration, generated by a recurrent neural network and shaped by consumer reviews from a popular online retailer. The project functions as an interface between the geological and the human-made, serving as a reminder that technology is, at its core, composed of the raw materials of the earth.
His project, Where There Are Edges, marks the beginning of a journey from the ethereal toward a deeper engagement with material realities. This site-specific virtual experience presents audio accounts from residents of Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Kent—an area suffering severe coastal erosion due to rising sea levels and worsening weather conditions. Despite the dramatic loss of land and the ongoing threat to homes, the Environment Agency has upheld a long-standing policy of non-intervention, declining to prevent further cliff erosion. The project serves as the foundation for a community network, providing affected groups with a platform for engagement while making their experiences accessible to wider audiences nationwide. This research is ongoing, with the aim of expanding the network to include other impacted communities over time. 

DESG4020: 2D Design Fundamentals

DESG5005: Brand Experience

DESG5001: Design Interaction

DESG4015: Digital Imaging

DESG5006: Wayfinding

DESG4016: Creative Narrative

DESG6004: Creative Ambition