Hasta La Ideas

Art books should have a certain allure, one that makes you want to open its cover and discover the story within. Many of the major book publishers, however, have found themselves in a rut. The same big name artists—both deceased and living—make regular…

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Art director and illustrator Kate Moross has published a book offering advice for aspiring creatives and a look at her impressive career so far…

By the time Kate Moross was 21, she had set up a record label, designed a clothing range for Topshop and created work for Cadbury’s, Sony, Vice and Dazed & Confused.

We first featured Moross as one to watch in 2008, when she was in her final year of a graphic design course at Camberwell College of Arts. In the six years since, she has set up a successful studio and produced record sleeves, music promos and campaigns for an impressive range of clients, including MTV, Jessie Ware, Disclosure, Paul Smith and Ray Ban.

As someone with a career that many twice her age would be proud of, Moross is well-placed to advise future generations on achieving success – which is what her forthcoming book, Make Your Own Luck: A DIY Attitude to Design & Illustration, aims to do.

As its title suggests, Make Your Own Luck is a guide to creating your own opportunities – something Moross has done since her teens, when she designed the school magazine and sets for school plays. She also made flyers for local gigs and club nights, designed Myspace profiles for bands and created logos and avatars for anyone and everyone she could.

“I followed a simple DIY ethos inspired by the riot grrrl and punk music culture that I had been absorbing…through pirated music, gigs, zines and, more importantly, the Internet,” she says in her introduction. “I didn’t emerge into the world with a fully formed style or approach. Rather, I’ve worked hard for years,” she adds.

The book stresses the importance of self promotion throughout, offering advice on setting up your own website and selling your own prints. It also provides a guide to agreeing fees and rates, being sensitive to clients’ wishes without compromising your style and sticking to your creative vision even if your tutor doesn’t ‘get’ it.

But while she offers plenty of tips for students hoping to make the most of art school, Moross also stresses that having a degree isn’t everything. “When I read a job application I don’t look at the CV until after I’ve looked at (and liked) the portfolio,” she says. “Having a Bachelor of Arts doesn’t make you employable. Experience is just as important,” she says.

As well as being full of practical information, Make Your Own Luck is a hugely enjoyable read. It’s littered with examples of personal and commissioned projects – from t-shirt designs and large scale murals to music videos and packaging – and the thoughtful commentary provides a fascinating insight into how Moross works. Designed by Praline, it features doodles by Moross throughout and the cover image, a collection of objects showing her range of work, was shot by photographer John Short.

For anyone interested in starting a career in a fiercely competitive industry, Make Your Own Luck is an essential read. It’s also an inspiring book for fans of Moross’ fun, varied and colourful style. As Neville Brody says in a foreword to the book, “Kate Moross is…brilliant, creative, fun and unique. And obsessed. You have to be. To not only survive but prosper in this industry requires all the driven craziness you can muster.”

Make Your Own Luck: A DIY Attitude to Design & Illustration is available to pre-order and will be published by Prestel Publishing on March 24. For details, click here.

Images courtesy of Ed Park.

A collaborative project from photographer Jason Orton and writer Ken Worpole, documents the changing landscape of the Essex coastline. We talk to Orton about his work as a photographer and the beauty of the forgotten landscape…

The book traces a rich history of cultural tradition and artistic heritage, connecting social-historical contexts and patterns human settlement with the changing ecology of the region. Worpole explores how writers and artists have been drawn to the area, since, post WWII, perceptions of the aesthetics of Englishness have shifted away from a romanticised view of rural life, and attention and value has turned towards contested eastern shorelines.

Orton’s photographs echo this, capturing these unique landscapes, and often liminal spaces, where town meet country and land meets sea. They depict vast “edgelands” of ambiguous coastline, new hybrid spaces, occasionally dotted with familiar relics of past human activity – windswept estuaries, bleak and beautiful marshlands, industrial and military ruins, and overgrown, abandoned outhouses.

In many of these depopulated and now wild landscapes, there is a sense of both desolation and wonder. As Worpole suggests, “at the tide’s ebb, there can be an overwhelming sense of emptiness in a world bereft meaning”, but also, “a sense of wonder at the edge of things is plainly evident in children when they first encounter the sea. There is no landscape in the world as magical – or whose spaces are so immeasurable – as a tidal beach.”

CR: Can you tell me a bit about your background – how did you first get into photography?

JO: I was brought up in a small village just outside Plymouth. After studying at Essex and Warwick Universities I worked for a government quango for five years, and then took a Diploma in Photojournalism at the London College of Printing. I worked as a editorial photographer for newspapers including The Telegraph and The Financial Times and then shifted direction, concentrating on long term personal projects.

When I moved to London it was important for me to get to know the city in a way that would enable me to cope living there. I began to use photography as a way of understanding the place.

CR: What were your earliest creative influences and interests?

JO: If I’m honest I don’t think I was particularly creative when I was young, and I can’t recollect having a camera until my late teens. However, being brought up in a small village by the sea, I was always exploring the landscape and coastline nearby.

CR: How would you describe your aesthetic?

JO: Possibly warped! I believe that my notion of what is a beautiful landscape is somewhat different from what is usually considered beautiful. I have no strong desire to photograph grand, dramatic, ‘sublime’ landscapes. I have an interest in visually representing the overlooked landscape. They are generally places where there is some evidence of former human activity (through farming, mining, industry etc.).

CR: What draws you to landscape photography in particular?

JO: I still believe that photography, and particularly landscape photography, has an important role in establishing concrete knowledge about a particular place. I am interested in how photography can be used as a counter to those who would prefer to treat certain types of landscape as having no intrinsic value. Beyond photography, I am interested in what people value within a landscape, the ways that they connect with the landscapes around them, and how photography can explore the relationship between landscape, history and memory.

The Wells Fireworks Factory project in Dartford, Kent, (pictured above) had a focus on how nature constantly re-appropriates forgotton spaces. These corrugated iron sheds, which for obvious reasons were spaced apart from one another, survive in an overgrown landscape of elder bushes and buddleia. How do structures like these feature in debates about what should be preserved in landscapes that are earmarked for regeneration? I would argue that they constitute an important part of the post-war history of Dartford Marshes and should be preserved in some form. Unfortunately, developers frequently see landscapes like these as blank canvases that can be cleared or levelled flat. The specifics of place are something that they’d prefer not to deal with.

CR: How would you describe your process, including collaborative projects such as recent publication The New English Landscape?

JO: First and foremost I’m a walker. It’s the desire to walk a landscape that sometimes manifests itself in the making of these photographs. But not always. It is very rare that I visit a landscape with a pre-determined idea about how I will photograph it. I like to re-visit them and then see how the photography develops over time. I like the idea of a how a particular landscape can work its way into people’s consciousness.

The New English Landscape explores the relationship between text and photographs. The writer, Ken Worpole, and I have worked together on several previous projects and intuitively share similar interests, pre-occupations and approaches to visual and historical details. Our starting point is that text and photographs should work independently, although our common interests inevitably mean that there is often an affinity between the two. We walk together on a regular basis and some of those walks have been the starting point for collaborative projects.

CR: Where do you find inspiration?

JO: I would probably say that most of it comes from outside of photography, although there are of course photographers whose work has inspired me, notably the British landscape photographer Jem Southam.

But inspiration can come from simple encounters. I was recently spending time in Plymouth and one morning while walking into the city centre I met a woman who does the same walk on a weekly basis. She was aware of the subtlest changes in the landscape, and was concerned about the implications – it’s that intense connection with a landscape and place that inspires me.

CR: What items are in your must have kit?

JO: Not much in the must have kit… Ordnance Survey Map, two cameras, including a Mamiya 7ii film camera with 65m and 80m lenses, film, light meter, bananas, nuts and raisins.

CR: What is the best thing about being a photographer now? And the worst?

JO: Not sure that I see things in terms of best/worst. I’m curious about what goes on around me, and photography allows me to satisfy that curiosity. And every now and again I get paid for being curious!

CR: Are you working on anything at the moment?

JO: I’m working on a commission for the GLA (Greater London Authority), developing a series of photographs that are loosely based around walks made along tributaries of the River Thames. These will form part of a primer document for a project called the All London Green Grid. As I’ve already done quite a lot of the photography for this commission, the recent flooding hasn’t really affected the work, although this might well be different if I was starting from scratch now.

The New English Landscape by Jason Orton & Ken Worpole is published by Field Station and is available to buy here.

See more at www.thenewenglishlandscape.wordpress.com, www.jasonorton.com

Photographs: Hornsey Island, Essex, Mar 2013; Maylandsea, Essex, Feb 2013; Maylandsea, Essex, Feb 2013; three images from the Wells Fireworks Factory project, Dartford, Kent; Mersea Island, Essex, Feb 2013; Maylandsea, Essex, Feb 2013; Hornsey Island, Essex, Mar 2013; cover and spreads from The New English Landscape.

Plastic furniture ubiquitous at cheap botecos in Brazil made to look like they were riddled with bullets (and sold at high-design prices), a chair created from wood scraps that was inspired by discarded furniture designers once saw…

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Competition: Dezeen has teamed up with publishers Summit to give readers the chance to win a book full of projects by design duo GamFratesi.

This is GamFratesi offers an insight into the design and creation of furniture, products and installations by the studio set up in Copenhagen by Danish designer Stine Gam and Italian designer Enrico Fratesi.

Written by authors Daniel Golling and Gustaf Kjellin, the book provides a detailed account of the pair’s designs, projects and processes since their debut at the Greenhouse emerging talent section of Stockholm Furniture Fair in 2007.

GamFratesi returned to the fair as Guest of Honour this year and the making of the studio’s installation of petal-shaped mobiles for the event is also recorded in the publication.

The development of other work including a little storage unit modelled on a traditional sewing box and a trolley with enormous wheels is documented through sketches, studio photographs, plus images of the finished pieces.

The hardback book was launched by Summit during last week’s Stockholm Design Week.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “This is GamFratesi” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers. Read our privacy policy here.

You need to subscribe to our newsletter to have a chance of winning. Sign up here.

Competition closes 10 March 2014. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

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