Curated By...Makers

Kate Moross is a designer, illustrator and art director based in London. She has been profiled in Grafik Magazine, Dazed & Confused, Vice magazine and Creative Review, who selected her for a Creative Future award in 2007. In 2012, she founded Studio Moross which focuses on music based projects.


At Sheffield Hallam University a Curated By... programme is run every year in the form of a series of lectures that involves speakers coming in to talk to us about various topics. On Wednesday 6th November they held a mini conference called "Curated By...Makers" that involved five speakers coming in to talk about making things. As a student at the University it is required for me to go to these lectures
.

At first i was reluctant to go...five hours is a long time to sit in one lecture room when there are deadlines looming and multiple modules taking your attention away from the speakers. And when the first speaker came on and began talking about technology, my thoughts were confirmed. All day i sat through the conference hoping that something would catch my attention but it just didn't happen. That's not to say that the speakers weren't interesting - i loved the passion they had for design and they all talked about interesting things that they had made. However, they were all technology based and the projects they work on are all digital and as that is not my strong point, i found it difficult to relate to. Because of this, my mind couldn't help but wander.

However, just as i had accepted that my time would have been better spent at home, Kate Moross took to the mic and i was hooked. Before this conference i had never heard of her but immediately i could tell that she would be an inspiration to me. She talked about how she got into the industry and the work she did during her time at uni. From the back of that she talked about how she began designing sleeves for vinyl records which i started to get really excited about as when i first started considering Graphic Design i always imagined myself working on graphics for the music industry.

She then went on to talk about Studio Moross, the studio that she started in Camden. Since then she had done some really interesting work and worked for some really good artists in the music industry. When i considered this aspect of graphic design i was always worried about how niche this market is becoming due to technological development but Kate is proof that there is still room to design for music and a huge inspiration for me!

After having a thorough look through her website I discovered that actually there is still a lot of graphic work that is needed by artists beyond album artwork. I thought that technology would restrict the opportunities in this field because of digital downloads but it has actually increased the opportunities. Today artists need a social media presence so they need branding and marketing for social media sites and they need visualisers for YouTube, as well as the traditional branding and identity, album artwork, a website and printed marketing materials. Beyond this, when artists go on tour they need merchandise and advertising. In other words, there are actually many design opportunities in the music industry, it is just a case of finding them.

Working at Studio Moross would be a dream job. She works with some amazing artists that I loved before I realised she was their designer, from BANKS and Sam Smith to TEED and Disclosure and to have a job like that to go to everyday would be incredible. I was definitely inspired by Kate's talk - the work she produces has motivated me to work towards my original goals - and her general attitude to life. After a long day in a lecture theatre her presentation was refreshing and I am so thankful that I decided to stay.

To look at some of the work she has done, visit her website at http://www.katemoross.com/
To look specifically at the work she has done for Studio Moross, visit http://www.studiomoross.com/BLOG