JORDAN MOSS

 Jordan Moss is a Brooklyn based illustrator and graphic designer. With a background that ranges from fine art to advertising, she loves getting the chance to design in all forms and mediums. Whether it's taking on hand painted murals in her hometown or digital stage graphics at Coachella, she's excited to create in all spaces. You can stay up to date with her at jordanemoss.com.

Hi Jordan. Thanks for joining me at Mint Tea. To begin, what’s your favorite tea?

I love a ginger green tea. It's a good time for me.

Could you tell me about your background and your practice?

I am an illustrator, graphic designer, and overall visual artist from Brooklyn, New York. Born in Brooklyn, live here now in Bed Stuy. I have always felt like creativity and art has been a part of my family, my friends. Especially in New York, I feel like there's so much creative energy, so I've never seen myself doing anything other than creating art of some kind. I thought I would be a photographer at one point, I thought I would be a writer, but visual art has been the path for me. I really thought I would be a fine artist that only did pen and ink drawing, or painting, and I love screen printing, but somehow digital art found me and this is where we are currently. I am also a digital graphic designer, and I've been lucky enough to have a career doing graphic design in the last couple of years. I also do freelance illustration. I have been in marketing and advertising as a full-time job and I've been lucky to do illustration with a lot of amazing people, whether it's commercial, collaborative experiences for fun, mural art, so just kind of everything. I love to do everything if I can, and sometimes that's a good thing and a bad thing.

What projects are you working on right now?

Right now, lots of editorial illustration with a few different clients, some cover art design, and some top secret fun stuff that I can't share yet, but it involves large scale mural work mixed with smaller social media graphic design work.

What are the visual themes you have been using lately?

Lately, people are really looking for me to do a lot of portrait work, which, I actually have a lot of anxiety doing portrait work. But somehow, people are really excited for me to do that these days, and it is a bit of a challenge for me, so it is pushing the boundaries a bit. People are definitely looking for me to do lots of various ethereal, dreamy work, which I think is sort of my realm. Someone asked me to just do a multi-universe, and I'm like, “Okay!” I think people either want to just see me do portraits or just do really abstract and dreamy, which is fine. That's my world, that's fine.

I am the most familiar with your digital illustrations. What inspires your style?

Style, I guess, comes from all the different artists that I grew up liking. Or cartoons, I love cartoons. Things have to feel vibrant, things should feel lush. I definitely like drawing inspiration from things that make me feel good. So I love surreal work, I love psychedelic work, mixed with New York City if you just sort of throw it all together in a pot, and then serve it as a gumbo. It should feel like ramen or gumbo, like I feel like I'm doing something correct if I feel full. As a digital artist. I don't want things to feel too digital. I don't think I'm drawing from digital things – it should feel more natural. Your dreams don't feel like technology, your dreams feel like some sort of weird space you stepped into that somehow you feel familiar with. So these are all feelings. It's all about the feels for me. The colors, I think I just respond to very vibrant pastel-like things. Yeah, I don't want things to feel too techy or too digital. That's not me. It might be because I didn't start from a digital base, either.

How do you decide what colors to use in your art?

A lot of time ago, I realized, color can make everything work. Like, color is going to make every idea transfer, as a vision, fully. I have a hard time sticking to one palette, which I wish I was better with – I feel like that would solidify me as an artist even more – but yes, color is super important. I always start in black and white. I never start in color. I feel like figuring out my lights and shadows and values is the answer before color. It's almost like creating a map, and once everything is mapped out, then apply color. Then you already have all your tonalities. Everyone loves orange, yellow, and pink, but if the values are there, we can already read the composition. Color, I think it's like the last sprinkle on top. I don't rely on it to lead the drawing, but it's going to steal the deal for sure.

Can you talk about any imagery or symbols that you like to work with?

Yeah, I don't know what is with me and the sparkles right now. I'm like, “This isn’t right, something's wrong. We need sparkles.” I love for things to look illuminated, or glowy, or dewy. So, droplets or sparkles, for some reason, is where I'm at right now. The more fantastical, the better. I'm never going to stop drawing women, never going to stop doing plants. I can't get it out. One time I forced myself to not use sparkles or plants and it turned out fine, but it just didn't hit the same for me. I relate way more to plants than people. Maybe that's why I don't like portraiture, because I'm like, “These are just more people. We're just drawing more people.” But I think what I've been doing is, I approach it the way I would approach a plant. I stopped looking at as people at this point. Like, there's so many cool shapes and interesting layers to the human face or anatomy where if I approach it that way, then we're cool.

When you create your images, what is the first thing that you think about? Colors? Composition? Subject matter?

So, if it's for someone else, I have no choice but to think about them, and what they like. Sometimes I have to write things out almost as a story, or I’ll take certain keywords, and those kind of already put the visual together for me. If it's for myself, sometimes I'll just have images in my head that just are sticking with me and I can't get them out. Like right now I'm obsessed with the idea of doing a cake illustration, like a very decadent cake with too much frosting and too many flowers. I'm obsessed with texture stuff right now, so the more complicated the texture and elements I can do, that would probably feel less digital, and I'm really into that. So this idea of this cake, it won't leave my head. So I guess I start with that, like what's been floating in my head too much. And then I probably have a thousand cake images saved in my phone, so now I'm gonna bring them all together and marry them into my own cake. I guess references pulling references from my mind or photography is step one.

So texture is at the front of your mind when you create a new image?

Yeah. Like, people really love this one drawing I made, it's a group of women in different hairstyles. I only wanted to do that drawing because there's so many different textures to the hair, and so many different patterns that I would have to use. I really wanted to tackle this texture and these really crazy hair styles, and I also wanted the whole thing to feel to have a feeling to it, like if it were printed, I would want it to have a certain texture literally to it. Yeah, I think a lot of the time, if I were to produce them off the screen, would this be a glossy thing, would it need a backlight, would it need to be on fabric? Even if I never do it, I always think about that.

Can you talk about the relationship between your digital practice and your large mural works? Do you map out the murals digitally before you start painting?  How does working in multiple media affect your practice?

Yeah, some of my murals have actually just been large-scale vinyl prints, so they required the digital file to be done with certain standards and certain practices. So that's a seamless transition – it’s just a matter of scaling the artwork. But for paintings, I do a digital version first, just because I need to get approval from the client, and it's easier for me to map things out. I always have to consider upfront what colors I can actually get in house paint. And then from there, I do a loose pencil outline of my digital design. I tend to keep things pretty much simple enough so that I just have to get the ratios correct and the proportions correct. Then I just start filling in the colors.

How much do you think the digital programs that you use affect your work? Do you find them limiting in anyway?

Yeah, absolutely, there's going to be limitations. I think for me and Photoshop, we've figured it all out there. There’s nothing I probably feel like I can't do, until I can't do it. Illustrator, I think there's sort of a joke that people who are Illustrator people struggle with Photoshop; people who are Photoshop people struggle with Illustrator. But they both honestly, are meant to do two things separately, and they kind of marry together at some point. So there's a reason why you're more limited in one than the other. I feel like I've found what I need to do in Illustrator and that's it. Like, we're not going to step out of that, because then things get weird. Yeah, I think there's limits to everything, but I think some people might feel that way every time they approach a medium, if they're not like comfortable enough. But I think, for sure, like how some people feel like they can't get textures out of Photoshop or digital art, I think there are going to always be limits.

What do you think is more important in graphic design: form or color?

I think form. I think people who rely on color for something to work – it needs to work in black and white and in color. To me, it's not a strong design, if you need it to be understood in color. It's an old school graphic design perspective, like my really old professor who is sort of from an old understanding of graphic design before it was on computer. That's what he felt strongly about, and I don't disagree. Does it work for real, if it needs to be in color? To me, no.

What is your favorite color? Does it find its way into your work?

My favorite color is red. And I never use red. And I don't have a lot of red in my home or in my expression, really. But I just love seeing red. I respond to something, when it's red, in my head. I don't know.

Is there a new medium that you would like to try, or to work in more?

I my next thing I'm doing is tattooing. I'm calling that my next medium. I am stoked to try it – I’m really passionate about it. If I'm not good at it, I'm not good at it, and you guys will never see it. But that's something, for me it's my next medium: skin and ink. I have a machine, I have a whole kit, like, it's waiting for me – I have not tried it.

How do you stay connected to your community?

I think I've learned that I'm a very like singular isolated person. I don't know if I'm an introvert, I just think I'm a very loner type of person. And I think this year made me realize I really need my people. Like, I really need my friendships, my art people, my Triple Nine people. I think, for sure we all stay connected just through art and through creativity. Just sharing like, “Hey, I think you'd like this,” or, “Hey, what are you doing? Can I see what you're working on?” For sure, art keeps us all together, and creativity in general. But now, talking. Like, I think we need to talk. And I hate talking, but it's like now I need it. Now I'm like, we need to talk. Like, we need to talk about nothing, something everything it has to happen. I'm losing my mind over here with just myself. And I never used to be that way. I don't know if it's as I get older. Also for me, I kind of I probably stay in the marketing and advertising world because we all are generating ideas on a constant loop all day long. We're always talking about ideas and creating and thinking. So I think for me, I have to discuss an idea.

What’s your favorite tool?

I'm gonna go with sleep, because sometimes I don't sleep at all. Sometimes I'll go days where all I've taken was a nap. So my desire to sleep and my lack of sleep are matched. But I love it, I'll sleep through anything. The world's ending, I'm going to go to bed.

What is the space where do you your work?

Home. I need to be home. I'll work anywhere – I take this laptop everywhere. I've worked on rooftops, I've worked on trains, I'll work wherever I can. But if I can work from home, or my bed… I'll work in my bed a lot. Or if I'm not home, I'll work in a bed before I'll find a table. So yeah, maybe the sleep and bed thing, maybe there's something connected. For my imagery, I have to just spend time out in the world away from the computer, whether it's just hanging out with friends, going out to eat. If I can take a walk, I'll take lots of pictures of flowers and the sky for some reason. I have been bad about getting back into galleries and museums, but I always feel better after I spend time at a gallery, or museum, or a bookstore. For sure I let the TV just run – the TV is just on and I'm not looking at it. I'm sure subconsciously that has to do something for you. It's just cartoons, like I watch Hey Arnold every night before bed. So nothing too fantastical sometimes, but I just need to have the screen running.

What animations or films do you like to watch?

Yeah, I love movies. I'm one of those movies snobs. It depends on the mood. Most likely I'm mostly going to watch a comedy or romantic comedy. I hate to admit that, because I feel like my brand is like The Shining or like Fight Club. But I would 1000 percent watch, like What a Girl Wants. I almost put it put it on today. I don't know why. I hate to admit it, I almost put on Charlie's Angels. Maybe it's like a nostalgia thing. Probably things I've watched over 50 times are going to get selected. In terms of cartoons, I wish I was more into anime, but it just has never entered my life. But I do love Sailor Moon. I just like a good story. To me Avatar the Last Airbender has a fantastic story, there's no flaw. It has to have a good story. What a Girl Wants, hello? Great story.

Do you listen to anything when you work? What music do you like to listen to?

While I'm working, if I am listening to music, most likely… like, I love hip hop, R&B, and trap, or house music and electro music, but if I’m working it’s probably something melodic and soft, maybe something jazzy. I make great playlists, there's a playlist called “Sigh,” and it just feels like a breath of fresh air. Ahhhh…. it's just a sigh. Everything has to feel melodic and soft, and not a lot of lyrics, either. Khruangbin is one of my favorite groups right now, and they are just melodic and soft and jazzy.

Do you have any ritual that helps you get into the zone?

Maybe not ones that are intentional, that I'm aware that I'm doing. But I think I have to go outside for like, a full day and just do something else before I attempt something that's big or important. If it's like a quick drawing, or something I know I can crank out in a couple of hours, then I'll just sit here and do it. But I think if it's something that I feel anxious about or big, I need to spend a day not doing work. Because something's not gonna click. And sometimes I clean. I have to clean before I do something. Even if my apartment’s not dirty or messy, I have to clean it again.

When do you know when you are finished with your illustrations?

I think I know I'm finished when I've met the client's requirement, but then I don't feel finished for myself. So then I probably spend another two to five hours and I'm just doing stuff that makes me feel a bit more finished. But I always look at something and think, “I could I just could tweak this really fast.” It’s not done, nothing's done.

Who are your favorite practicing artists?

Asif Hoque, he's a fine art painter. And Aaron Fernandez and Derek Abella are both digital artists. These are my friends, so it's cheating. But I'm gonna go with them because right now I feel like if I took all three of them and had a baby, it would be me. Asif is a painter, an oil painter. I've known him for a couple of years, and I saw him go through a few phases of his work. Right now he's obsessed with a very romantic style of painting. There are these angels, and they're dancing, there are clouds. It's kind of like a dreamscape, and the figures are very stylistic to him, and his perspective. They're not accurate and they’re not anatomical at all, and their body parts are all dancing. It looks like one big dance – I love it. And it all has a very consistent palette, which adds a very consistent feel, which I appreciate. And then Aaron Fernandez, his work is all fun. It's all like a video game. He's like the digital guru. He's a brilliant creative in any facet he chooses, but his style of illustration is just so fun – talk about a color palette, talk about creating your own visual language – that is Aaron when you see him. And Derek Abella, we've never met, but I feel like we just became friends because of the internet. His work is very similar to mine, whereof our approach with texture. His is very moody, and his compositions are very smart, and his style of human figures I think are just really exaggerated and cool. He taps in very well into his culture and his heritage through his work. So I love that, I love that his identity is shown very clearly in his work too.

More famous people are Kehinde Wiley, who is someone who I saw his work at the Brooklyn Museum, and I walked in and felt like I unlocked a new level or something, like in a video game. I was like, this is some sort of language that I just found, that’s it. Andy Dixon, his work is super cool. I feel like I'm directly inspired by him. I saw him for the first time at a gallery in Soho. He did a giant Versace shirt, and it was suspended in mid-air. It's a large-scale piece, and it's overwhelming. Kehinde has a lot of patterns, but Andy, I think, has the colors I respond to. And he has really good staging: lots of still life, lots of Renaissance-looking work, too. And this one other guy, Christian Rex van Minnen, is just the killer of anatomy, killer of texture, killer of color, killer of, “What is going on here?” All these people, I guess these are things I want to achieve and do.

What gives you the feeling of butterflies in your stomach?

I think for me, I'm a sucker for like a good sunset or sunrise. I always feel like a little, I don't know if it's butterflies, but like, that has to be it. Really good food, a really long hug, a new plant. Like, nothing specific. Clean sheets, like when you just wash all your bedding and you can climb in at the end of the day. That's the one.

jordanemoss.com | @__jinx