Former WUD Music Director maps out his future
By Brooke Appe
Though taking the entrepreneurial route in today’s economy is a daring move, former Wisconsin Union Directorate Music director Matt Forrest decided to take the plunge and see what he could make of it. With the skills he acquired in the classroom in harmony with the leadership he gained outside, Matt created his own mapping firm, Carticulate, and found incredible success. Now based in New York with a wide variety of clients, the firm has gained considerable traction in creating maps for cities, events and analyzing data.
Matt Forrest. Photo courtesy of Matt Forrest.
Matt was not always so well acquainted with his love for mapping. As a freshman at UW-Madison, he was unsure of what to major in. In a visit to the cross-college advising service, an advisor suggested he consider geography. He found it to be a welcome fit, declared his major, and worked hard to further expand the skillset that would become so useful when he decided to start his own company upon graduating in 2010.
“I took my first geography class and decided I liked it so much I declared my major. I needed science credits so I took cartographic design, a design course that was really intense. I learned a lot and then I took more interactive design courses,” he said.
Matt started the firm Carticulate with his friend and classmate, Kate Chanba.
“We both decided we wanted to keep mapping,” he said. “We put up our website and got few projects here and there like transit maps for Ashville, NC and the Skyway map in Minneapolis. It just grew organically from there, which was fun to do.”
The classroom was not the only place where Matt acquired the skills to manage a burgeoning business. As the Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) music committee director, he had the opportunity to develop invaluable skills in management and organization.
“With WUD, there is a lot of networking, talking to people, learning schedules, and staying on your toes. Keeping up with school, building a budget – simple things like that transfer over to the business world,” he said. “A lot of the indirect stuff in your back pocket that you can do helps you like learning to design show fliers, building a website – things you have to do that go a long way. It’s definitely helpful and played a really big role in my success.”
Milwaukee Subway map. Photo courtesy of Matt Forrest.
Now these “backpocket” abilities are at the forefront of Matt’s progress, which is most recently displaying itself in the attention he’s gotten for creating a theoretical map of what the Milwaukee transit system might look like if it existed. The map was picked up by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an article detailing how he came up with the concept and extensively researched to create it. He even imagined hypothetical historical details, like what would happen if two lines were built by competing firms and were later stitched together, which actually happened in New York City. Though there are not any plans to make a subway system in the city, the map sparked a discussion.
“With Milwaukee, it was important to visualize an idea to understand how it could be executed. There are a lot of transit projects going on around the country and when people see how they could use it, it becomes a lot more powerful,” he said.
As for the future, Matt hopes to see his business continue to flourish.
“I like the way its growing for us. I see it growing progressively as it is now as we find different projects. The need for what we’re doing will continue. Someday I’d like to have a scroll shop, selling print maps, having a couple people working,” he said.
