A fine artist, designer, animator, illustrator, writer, craftsman, and most importantly, curious participant.

Matt Hunter Ross
Portrait by Elizabeth Ross.

FESTHAUS is my personal portfolio and boutique Cincinnati-based design studio with a wide-range of artistic capabilities, delivering original, educated, intentional design for 20 years (which you can read more about here).

In my “off hours” from digital projects, I explore analog design methods for a variety of creative personal projects (which can be seen below).

My interests gravitate toward fine art & architecture, history, science, education, illustration and story-driven immersive experiences. Thus, my efforts in the design world lean toward museums, zoos, and other themed entertainment (e.g. theme parks, themed events).

I’m a big believer in story first, then wrapping that unique idea in a thematic, holistic design. A designed experience has to make sense to me, have intention; a reason for being – not just eye candy. The most successful experience is one with a continuing theme or that reflects an overarching story, tied together through seamless or well-designed transitions.

In design, I dislike stock, computer-generated templates, digital prompts, and anything AI (and yes, I know I’m bucking the future). Digital tools are one thing, but the act of creation should always be human-based. If, for example, I use Adobe Creative Suite tools or Procreate, they are a means to an end that I create – I do not allow software to come up with solutions for me.

I want to be a creator of things that I would consume: art and products and experiences that are thoughtful, handmade (or at least human-generated), and preferably tactile – not a derivative formulation of a digital algorithm. The beautiful and most interesting parts of life, in my opinion, are in the real, natural, pure, (ideally) multi-sensory, unexpected and sometimes imperfect state of things.

Which makes sense – I’m Gen X and grew up without the need or want of a lot of what makes up today’s world.

As a student of the classical studio arts, architecture, animation, and as an illustrator and author – along with over 20 years of digital design experience and a love of research and curation – I have a thorough understanding of the visual arts from story-based, multi-dimensional, and tactile perspectives.

The result: works of art that are intentional and personal – and hopefully things that audiences enjoy.