Over the past year, director and designer Kate Moross has collaborated with singer-songwriter Jessie Ware on all things visual - from logos, to print campaigns, to several of her music videos. Along with Jessie and the styling team at Silver Spoon Attire, Kate has directed  nearly all of her music videos, starting with "Running” released early last year, all the way through to “Imagine It Was Us” which was just released today. We talked to Kate about her relationship with Jesse, collaborating with Silver Spoon Attire, and repackaging her Devotion album for a US release.

Doug: How did your relationship with Jessie begin? How did you found yourself working on the original project?

Kate: I met Jessie to work on her logos, actually. I started from a graphics point of view, working on logos and vinyl packaging. Then they came to me and asked if I could get involved with helping them find a director to shoot "Running," which they had a quite strong idea of what they wanted it to be. I said, "Look, we haven't got a massive budget. I've made music videos, why don't you just let me direct it?" and they agreed to it. She has worked with other directors since, but we collaborate regularly on film projects.

Doug: Do a lot of those ideas originate with her? Are they her ideas first and then you take them from there?

Kate: Yeah. The good thing about working with Jessie is her initial idea is always good, and it's always quite simple. After that, she doesn't feel like she has to change it. She's a really great person to work with because she has a great idea, and then she trusts me to execute it, rather than struggling for us then to come up with something we agree on. It's just a question of taking the idea and running with it. She doesn't interfere with it after I've started working on it. Then we work pretty smoothly, once that image has been created.

Doug: Her original ideas, are they more conceptual or are they more technical? Are they more hands on style ideas, or is it more of a general feeling and vibe that she's trying to create?

Kate: For "Running," she wanted a video that gave a nod to Sade. We also wanted to do a performance video, so I took those two aspects, mixed in London, and that's kind of the result. She wanted to be glamorous, and I worked with Damian and Avigail, who are called Silver Spoon, on the styling. We always work together on the videos to develop Jessie's look, and everyone kind of has their own department that they focus on. We all work in our strengths. I tend to have the most control of the product once it hits the edit. Once it gets to edit and grade, I pretty much do that all by myself, but before that the process is quite open. For “Imagine It With Us,” we wanted to do something fun and colorful, something that doesn’t take itself so seriously.

Doug: Working with Silver Spoon, what's that process like? Is Jessie also involved in it?

Kate: Silver Spoon does all of her styling. The first project we did together was "Running," but since then I think they've styled it for pretty much everything she's done - whether it be appearances, red carpet, awards, videos. They're really creative, so they don't just do promos, they do lifestyle as well. The three of us together are all collaborators with each other. I've also work with them on other projects, as well as together with them working on Jessie. They've worked on every video that she's done, including "Imagine It Was Us.” I pretty much let Avigail from Silver Spoons and Jessie decide on the outfits together, but I enjoy going to the fittings and gossiping with them.

Doug: And for the “Imagine It Was Us” video, did the casting and choreography tie together in this video? Pretty much everyone in the video seems to have some pretty good dance moves.

Kate: Natricia Bernard choreographed the video, and she was great to work with. I actually cast the dancers myself as we didn't have time to get everyone together. It was one of my favorite parts of doing the video, the dancers were all so good, and such great energy on set, they made it for me.

Doug: You also directed a video for a cover of "If You Love Me" that Jessie is featured on. This video seems to be a lot more similar to your Alpines "Ice And Arrows" video. You mentioned that a lot of the times, most of your control comes in the edit, and this is a pretty edit-heavy video. Did you find that you had more control of this particular video than the others?

Kate: That one was done completely in-house, we didn't use a production company. I normally work with Pulse Films, but on the occasion that I get to do a smaller production, a creative-heavy video, then we tend to do them in house just because we don't need the mass event that the production company is. For that video I sent some storyboards, spoke to her management on the phone, and just said, "I'd like to do this," and they said OK. Jessie and BenZel were both in that process, but from afar. They just kind of let me run with something super colorful and creative.

Doug: Was that just a standard green screen production? Was there any styling done on this video given that she's just a silhouette?

Kate: Yeah, it was more about the hair and the silhouette. We just shot it in natural light, actually, with just a lit backdrop and Jessie was in the shadow. It wasn't actually green screen, it was just a silhouette. We filmed her in silhouette, and keyed out the white background and keyed in her silhouette so that we had two layers to work with for the footage.

Doug: You mentioned doing graphics for her. You also did the graphic illustrations for her Guardian Guide cover. Did you do the photography for those, or were those existing photos that you then did illustrations over the top of?

Kate: The Guide was shot by a photographer that was commissioned by The Guardian, so I actually got that commission separately. I also have a company called Studio Moross, and we do all of Jessie's print campaign, all her packaging as well. I've been working with Jessie from a good while ago now, over a year ago, and we've done everything. I've done all the releases on all the vinyl and the CDs and everything. The Guardian was actually kind of a coincidence, because I do covers for The Guardian regularly, and they happened to run a feature on her and they asked me to do the cover as well. It was kind of a happy coincidence that worked.

Doug: Your relationship with Jessie, you mentioned you've worked with her for a while, you've done a lot of projects with her. Is there a point where you reach a comfort level that once established has maintained throughout the relationship?

Kate: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the best way of putting it. Now, we're working with her US label, Cherrytree, to repackaged her album for the States. We've kept that relationship even over into a new label, so I think that shows that we have a really good mutual trust and a really good creative relationship that will continue to work together. We help with the stage visually and lots of other things. We're really good friends now and I think that's very crucial to the process.

Doug: You mentioned repackaging the album for the states, was there also a repackaging of Jessie’s image?

Kate: We haven't changed any of Jessie's identity for the US. In fact, the designs have stayed the same, apart from the change in front cover - and that is just from a visual difference point of view than an image thing. We have stayed working on all of Jessie's design for Cherrytree. It's more common that artists are rejigged for the American market, but actually we have kept everything consistent as that was our aim from day one. The only other major change was the new website which we had in the pipeline for months, but I'm so glad it's up, I'm really proud of it.

Doug Klinger is the co-founder/content director of IMVDb and watches more music videos than anyone on earth. You can find him on twitter at @doug_klinger.