About
Matthew A. Cottrell
I take complicated software apart until it makes sense.
I’m a product designer. For seven years I’ve designed enterprise IT software, the kind of tool people use all day at work and only notice when it slows them down. I like the complicated parts. I take them apart until they make sense, then put them back together with fewer steps and clearer status. Before that I spent six years in creative services, designing campaigns for adidas, the NBA and E.D. Smith.
Outside the day job I build the tools I wish I’d had: VPAT Vault for accessibility reports, linefield for generative backgrounds, Forma for 3D renders, and an agent bench that runs my own projects. I’m also building Terry Time, a shop for Terry, the face that keeps turning up on East Van walls. I write about design and AI on Substack, and I draw ink portraits of film characters who stuck with me.
How I work
14 rules, each pulled from a project where I learned it the hard way.
R-01
Brightness comes from lines crossing, not from colour.
R-02
Feedback that can’t cite a number isn’t feedback.
R-03
Boring formats win.
R-04
A brutal system still has to pass accessibility, or it’s just ugly.
R-05
Nothing runs that you did not start.
R-06
One owner per layer.
R-07
The system reports its own health.
R-08
Removing polish doesn’t remove hierarchy, it relocates it.
R-09
Instant feedback is a decision, not a missing feature.
R-10
A clean pass that teaches nothing doesn’t count.
R-11
The rulebook only grows from evidence.
R-12
Specialize once, commit the result.
R-13
A first run should look considered, not empty.
R-14
Degrade honestly instead of assuming a terminal.
What I work on
- The Teardown Your most complicated workflow, taken apart and rebuilt. You get the new flow, a redline spec and a working prototype.
- The Rulebook Your design system rewritten as rules a script can check: tokens, rule IDs and build gates that fail.
- The VPAT Sprint An accessibility audit that ends in a publishable VPAT 2.5, with the evidence attached to every row.
- The Agent Bench An AI workspace for your team: scoped agents, a Markdown second brain and a status page, so nothing runs unseen.