​Matt's graphic design work sits at the intersection of folklore, music culture, and invented history. He's drawn to the stories we tell ourselves—cryptids glimpsed at the edge of a tree line, records that feel like artifacts from a world that almost existed, and songs that unfold like short stories.
 

Alongside cryptid and folkloric imagery, he creates reimagined book covers inspired by individual songs. These pieces translate narrative lyrics into the visual language of vintage paperbacks—treating a song as if it were a novel pulled from a secondhand shelf. Rather than illustrating a specific moment, he focuses on mood, implication, and the kind of imagery that lingers after the music stops.
 

Many of his works are informed by eyewitness accounts, regional legends, and the design language of archival ephemera: field guides, mass-market paperbacks, record sleeves, and municipal signage. He's interested less in proving whether something is real than in exploring why people believe—and how design can make a story feel lived-in, credible, and strangely familiar.
 

The result is artwork that treats the unreal with documentary seriousness: posters that feel archival, songs that read like books, and artifacts from a parallel culture that might have been hiding in plain sight all along.

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Matt's published two novels ("Dead Things" and "Freaks Anon") and a handful of short stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

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He provides ongoing thought leadership on curbside management and mobility. He writes for transportation periodicals and blogs on LinkedIn.
 

Matt is a vinyl junkie and book collector. He's the proud son of artists Linda Painter Darst and Donald Darst. Linda’s diverse mediums included pottery and textiles. In addition to being a Texas Master Naturalist, she was selected by Early American Life Magazine in its directory of Traditional American Crafts. A portion of proceeds from Matt’s works are donated to Stand Up to Cancer in her memory. Donald is an accomplished oil painter, activist, and gallery owner. He served two terms as the Mayor of Grey Forest, Texas.