About The Man In The Sea

Matthew Todd
The Name

The Man In The Sea was a name I coined while doodling in one of my early morning classes in college. I drew a little squid and then magically the name came to me. It has no relationship to the book, The Old Man And the Sea, but I do plan on reading it someday. It probably has more of a relationship to the man in the moon. 

The Person

I was born in Mesa, Arizona and spent the first 18 years of my life in the desert going to indie shows and playing hacky-sack with my friends in high school. I never knew growing up that design was going to be such a big part of my life so I spent most of my younger years learning how to play guitar and running on the cross-country team. I moved to the Mid-west right after high-school and began studying the at a small Bible college. I graduated in 2007 and have been living-it-up ever since.

The Designer

I first got into design as a sophomore in college. I had always been interested in art, photography and design but I never pursued it. Then, one day at work my manager came up to me and asked if I would be interested in designing flyers for concerts. I knew it was something I was into so I went out and got a copy of the latest Adobe Suit and fumbled my way around PS. I ended up having to make around 2-3 flyers a month at first, but as our shows increased it turned into anywhere from 10-20 flyers a month, which provided a great challenge and opportunity for growth. It was very demanding and I had to learn how to continually be taking in new ideas to stay fresh. One of the great things about working at the venue was that I had to learn how to design for the different genre’s of music. This lent itself well to helping me get an understanding of what it means to design with a specific audience in mind.

The Site

The Man In The Sea is the personal blog and portfolio of Matthew Todd Spiel. I am a 24 year old freelance designer and I spend most of my time in a small, Southwestern city in Missouri. I live in an awesome apt. outfitted with some Ikea furniture and my trusty Macbook (it doubles as my command post for freelance domination). I loves cats, a good brewsky, Packers Football, NPR and the One and Only.