Kate Moross - Make Your Own Luck

Link: Kate Moross
Link: Studio Moross
Link: Prestel Publishing

Been excited about this since Kate Moross first mentioned it and now her first proper book-shaped round-up of occasionally triangle-obsessed work tops the graphic design pre-order list at Amazon. Although much more than a graphic designer, it also features her illustration output whilst simultaneously demonstrating advanced abilities as an entrepreneur and all-round inspiration. There's also a foreword by Neville Brody but Kate's own overview of her creative process already makes this an essential purchase.

Amazon link: Make Your Own Luck: A DIY Attitude to Graphic Design and Illustration

For The Record #6: Kate Moross

Link: Kate Moross
Link: Studio Moross
Link: Stiff Records
Link: Design Manchester 13
Link: Paul Gorman's Reasons to be Cheerful book


Ahead of her talk at Design Manchester 13 tomorrow (alongside Malcolm Garrett, Peter Saville and Mark Farrow, no less), Kate Moross selects the Kandinsky-inspired 1977 work by Barney Bubbles for The Damned's Music For Pleasure as her personal favourite sleeve.

"I didn't know what it was when I first found it but I loved it immediately," she says. "Some people will obviously know about Barney Bubbles but I still don't think he's had the recognition that he deserves. Not when you consider the amount of great work he did.

"I've got to know Bubbles' biographer Paul Gorman and he's said that he sees some of him in me. Not necessarily in terms of our styles... but it's a huge compliment."

Kate Moross' own book, Make Your Own Luck, is published by Prestel April 2014.

Manchester Confidential also has a feature on Design Manchester 13.

Jessie Ware art direction by Kate Moross

Link: Studio Moross
Link: Jessie Ware

Those people thinking that they have the measure of designer Kate Moross after encountering her earliest illustrated text, day-glo colour palettes and geometric patterns might be surprised by her restrained art direction for, singer, Jessie Ware. But then - from Simian Mobile Disco's recurring circle motifs to the art deco aesthetic she devised for Fenech-Soler - Moross is far from being a one trick pony.

This latest campaign (including the singles that preceded, album, Devotion) has been typified by an elegant, balanced approach with some lovely detailing. Meanwhile the creative's playfulness has been demonstrated in new, innovative ways: including the interactive billboard that, while undoubtedly fun, still managed to stay true to Ware's sophisticated image.

Fenech-Soler work by Kate Moross

Maybe it's because it wasn't uploaded to Kate Moross' site or because the shops I'd frequented had decided not to stock, but the last batch of work for Fenech-Soler had passed me by. Odd really as I had been aware of the earlier - and less interesting - output by this electropop band.

Anyway what Moross has commendably managed to do here is retain the essence of the 1980s that more blatantly permeated their early visuals yet stayed true to her own passion for geometric shapes. The typography has an Art Deco revival feel but that, for me, only adds to that eighties aesthetic. Plus there's a lovely metallic sheen courtesy of Jane Stockdale's phototography.

I hate to say 'retro-futurism' again, but it is all a bit like Miami Vice in space.

Perhaps.