About

My name’s Matthew Borgatti. I have done a lot of things: building movie monsters, prototyping, teaching, graphic design, illustration, product design, and fashion. I’m currently working on a gigantic mobile pipe organ and open source methods for making soft robots.

I love fine craftsmanship and rapid prototyping. I believe that the right tools applied in the right way can marry these two ideals together into some powerful designs. I want to explore the dwindling divisions between the digital and analog worlds and produce ideas that can survive on their own in the memeplex.

My life in art began at RISD, switching from an illustration track after figuring out objects could have as much narrative and emotion as paintings. I quickly expanded out from the ID curriculum to study how things actually get made. While getting my degree I spent every summer in the SFX industry, learning how to machine, cast, make molds, adapt materials, and make things work the first time every time. Between graduating in ’07 with a BFA in ID and now I’ve worked on 5 books, developed projects in house for Instructables, designed and built kite powered racers for Makani, designed the CNC curriculum at TechShop, run my own jewelry company, and animated a TV series for NOVA.

My other hobbies include urban spelunking, developing open source products, graphic design, and photography.