The College of Design is proud to recognize Matt Checkowski [BGD ‘98] as this year’s distinguished alumnus. Checkowski, vice president of multisensory brand innovation & strategy at Mastercard, will be honored at the Wolfpack Boards Luncheon in October and serve as the College of Design spring 2025 commencement speaker.
The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes the significant achievements of a talented and committed group of individuals. Recipients of this award are design professionals representing the disciplines of the college. They are individuals who have made significant contributions to new insights, fostering original ideas and searching for added knowledge.
Matt Checkowski’s work explores the intersections of design, narrative and technology, working across boundaries to elevate and expand storytelling.
His work includes Glyph, an A.I. artwork in the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection, the iconic dream sequences in Minority Report, and media content for a sci-fi opera with M.I.T. As the founder and principal of The Department of the 4th Dimension, a brand innovation agency, he has partnered with Sephora, Monday Night Football and the University of California System.
An accomplished filmmaker and storyteller, Matt directed the feature film, Lies & Alibis, starring Steve Coogan and Rebecca Romijn, and proudly serves on the board of Young Storytellers, an arts non-profit that equips young people to be the driving force in their own narratives.
Matt arrived at NC State as a first-generation college student, hoping to pursue a creative career that made his parents nervous. He found a home in the College of Design that “not only validated those crazy ideas but gave me what I needed to step into this world and build a career paving my own path and doing what I always dreamed of doing.”
His time as a student was one of rapid innovation, where students were just beginning to use computers in studio. “So much was in flux – I’d be getting torn apart in a critique by my professor for my poor typography skills, while at the same time being hired by grad students to code and build their interactive thesis projects,” he says.
One moment that stood out to him was a mid-semester meeting with Andrew Blauvelt. “About ten minutes into the meeting, he grabbed my sketchbook, flipped through it, and laughed — there weren’t any drawings or designs in it,” Matt recalls. “He said ‘only an NC State Design student would have a sketchbook full of only written ideas.’ We both kind of liked that.”
As this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, Matt feels it’s an opportunity to come back to a place that meant so much to him. “It’s a chance to say thank you. Thank you for making all of this possible,” he says.
Today, he’s excited by the work that brings people into spaces between different perspectives and experiences. “ Sometimes that’s launching over the horizon towards possible futures, other times it’s a tiny step forward. That process is meaningful and essential for me as someone who is curious and on my own journey with and through my work, trying to figure out this crazy world,” he says. He finds meaning in helping people realize new possibilities and come together into a new understanding.
When asked to share a message with students, he gave two simple phrases: “Don’t wait for permission,” and “Use your powers for good.”
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