Jenny à la Mode
Q What do you do?
“I am an illustrator, which means I get to draw all day long :)”
I've illustrated drawings for books, magazines, oracle decks, stickers, t-shirt designs and packaging! I started out using pen and ink, watercolor and then added in photoshop until now I'm illustrating completely digitally with photoshop or Procreate.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
"How much time do you have? Lol! It has been a long and meandering journey to get here, and I am still not ""there."" Perhaps I will never be ""there""! As a child, I always loved drawing and painting, so it was natural for me to decide to go to art school. I studied Painting and Art History in Boston. After that, I ended up working as a painter for Takashi Murakami during the height of his Eye Love Louis Vuitton era. I also had a deep passion for fashion, so while I was at the studio, I took fashion design classes at Parsons.
Upon graduating, I worked for fashion and accessories companies in NYC, primarily focusing on designing handbags. I don't know what gave me the courage, but I decided to start my own line of bags. At first, I experienced some mild success, but ultimately, I lacked the business know-how to maintain and grow it successfully, which led me to close the label. It was heartbreaking, but it prompted some soul searching.
I decided to knock out to life bucket list items at once and go back to school to get my MBA and move to Paris! As always, I found myself doodling drawings in the margins of my microeconomics or corporate finance notes, and a classmate noticed them and said something that has stuck with me ever since. He told me, ""It would be a shame if you were given this artistic talent and didn't do something with it."" So, in the midst of an intensive business program, I came full circle back to drawing, painting, and illustrating! Et voilà!"
Q How do you stand out in your field?
Clients usually want to work with me because my work is funny, flirty and the right amount of sexy cute LOL!
Q What are you working on right now?
I'm working on a collection of illustrations to be used for a web series with some very simple animation. Kind of like custom branded gifs or emojis. Also working on a personal project to create a small collection of merch :)
Q What’s your style?
"The project that I had the most fun with and aligned most with my style, taste and personality was with Kosas Cosmetics, a clean beauty brand from CA. I got to create a collection of illustrations that was used for their social media, stickers and t-shirt designs. It was fun, funny, sexy, tongue in cheek, shiny, a little nostalgic and very California!
My favorite moment in the this project were e-mails and meetings regarding an illustration of a ""cat in a bikini, drinking a latte"" The art directors gave me the feedback that the cat needed to be sexier, like a ""THOT in Miami"" and then sent me images of Hailey Bieber in a neon string bikini!"
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
Because I love fashion and I have so much experience working in fashion, I would love to work with fashion brands again.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
I am really bad at promoting myself and pitching myself to brands, clients. I'm really bad at selling myself and it's been on the bottom of my list for weeks, months to put myself out there... so, this is kind of one of my first steps!
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
A personal organizer to organize my home lol! My favorite procrastination activity is organizing so i feel like if my home was just organized there wouldn't be any organizing to distract me lol!
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
I have a few things I would have told myself but maybe they wouldn't have led me to where I am now and I'm pretty happy where I am now, but yes a few things: Boston, Summer 2002; he's not worth it, move to Tokyo for 2 years like you planned!
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
I'd love to have someone critique my work and tell me what I need to improve on, what i should expand into and what i should just quit doing work wise and life wise ha!
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
Open to anything that I can add a fun, whimsical touch to!
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
As mentioned earlier, I really loved working with Kosas. It was so much fun and I think we got each other. It was fun, sexy and silly and it was adding an artistic element to their products
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
E-mail is best and I prefer a brief general idea of what the project is about, ball park budget and timeline!
Q Who is a creative you admire?
Susan Rivas, my best friend and an amazing art director
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
Dreams dance in my mind, Flea markets whisper stories, Sweet croissants seduce
This member profile was originally published in June 2023