By Heydon Prowse
Artist/designer Kate Moross designed the War-themed poster for Don't Panic. She is only 20 and already her client list includes the Whitechapel Gallery, Young Turks, The Mystery Jets, Merok, Comanechi, Concrete Hermit and Lynx. Her flyer designs have defined the look of a hundred club nights and you might have spotted her Cadbury adverts plastered across billboards all over the place.
Where do you come from, where do you go? Where do you come from Kate Moross?
Come from North London, live in South London. Go to public parks and light fires with friends. Eat sausages and climb trees. Then have a nap.
What does your average day consist of?
Get up - normally I aim for 10, but sleep through my alarm. Get woken by the doorbell by a package arriving, rush down stairs with a blanket around my waist. Then eat some food, have some tea, sit at my desk. Take random breaks to watch some Riki lake, or a lame property program. Work all day, have people over in the evening, eat snacks and watch movies.
You say that you are a workaholic. Do you ever have to stop and find some inspiration with a coffee and a fag?
Stop! No! I just smoke and drink coffee while I'm working.
Is innovation something that has to be worked at, or should it come naturally?
Worked at. I have a rule when I am drawing. If I don't like it at the beginning I never start again, I just make my self stick at it, until I make it into something I like. This applies to everything in my work, I always start somewhere, that might not be a great start or particularly innovative, but eventually you mould it into something that is.
Your style is quite varied. Some of your work is quite geometrical and some is very organic. Does each style demand a different process or state of mind?
Organic work tends to be nearly all by hand. It’s something I can sit at my desk for a good nine hours and come out with a drawing. It is much better to work this way as you see the parts come together. It’s really hypnotic and I don't even notice that I am doing it half the time. The Geometric work demands a little more concentration. The computer acts as a barrier between you and the work and sometimes it is hard to visualise where the work is going, it can be more frustration, but hugely satisfying when you get it right.
On your website you say that you are working on a type face based on the rules of gestalt theory and isometry. Can you explain a little more?
Ok well, I have been studying the perceptual chapter of Gestalt, which basically dictates that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is broken down into sub sections and laws for example, the law of closure – if we see a line that is missing sections but still exists on the same plain our brains will connect the fragments of the line and see it as a whole. I developed some type faces following a handful of Gestalt Laws. This project is something I am going to continue to work with next year. I aim to get a more in-depth understanding of the subject and develop my own book on Visual Grammar.
Who, for you, were the great innovators of art and design?
Hmm, hard one, thank god you didn't ask me who my "inspiration" was. I hate that question, it’s so dry. This demands more thought. I would say Peter Saville, not for his aesthetic, but for his motives, and direction. I have an obsession with the minimalists like Sol Lewitt and the Colour Theorists like Joseph Albers and Johannes Itten. I admire artists who have turned art and design into theories. It his enriched the subject, and certainly makes me stand up and pay attention.
i really like finding out about the concept behind the work of designers and it's really great to see how kate gets her influences from art, science and even sweet wrapers (as stated in the previous interview) also finding out about the rules and guide lines they make for themselves,
Hi there, what year was this interview published please?
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