1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Jordan Michael Gray, and I’m a graphic and motion designer from Kansas. I work at an advertising agency called Bernstein-Rein, as well as a fair amount of freelance.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I usually start by getting some coffee with my design partners. A few times a week I have rather informal meetings, or a client presentation, but mostly I just hang out at my desk and design. Occasionally if I’m working on a large motion graphics project I do it from home in my sweats, which is definitely a perk of the job.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I have a relatively large amount of freedom. I enjoy working with pleasant, honest people. Most importantly though, I love that I get to create all day. I look at what some old friends are doing, or remember some past minimum-wage gigs and think about how lucky I am to get to design for a living. I mean, my buddy has to wear a vest to work so a criminal doesn’t kill him. I’d say I’ve got it pretty easy.

4. What do you like least about your job?
In general I have a great job, but it really infuriates me when pro-bono clients get as pushy and demanding as a paying client. They’d better be a pretty damn saintly organization for me to take that lying down. I had a charity client micro-manage down to the exact PMS color of my design after already rejecting what many consider some of my best work. There are always inner-office politics that can get anybody down no matter where you work, but I would say I’m rarely as enraged as when I get abused by someone who isn’t even paying for it. It’s like getting shanked in a prison yard.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
The disappearance of the arts in schools. It’s as important as math and reading. Period.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I try to back-pocket any aesthetics that I would consider obviously “me”, and start thinking about how taking on this project could be used to expand my creative horizons. I research eras of culture completely divorced from my current situation. It gets me looking at the possible outcomes a little differently. I almost always come back to something that feels like “me”, but with these little (hopefully unexpected) touches pulled from the lives of others.

7. What inspires you the most?
Film, History, Nostalgia, Color Swatches, Political Commentary, Music, other people who’ve taken the everyday things I usually neglect and give them new purpose and life.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Definitely. I’m always listening to something. I have this tendency to pick a song that I love and put it on repeat for an entire day, sometimes for a whole week. I play it over and over until it’s part of my atmosphere – but part I can control and know I’ll enjoy. Some of these songs include: “Saturday Sun” by Nick Drake, “Float On” by Modest Mouse, “Pounding” by Doves, “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” by Elvis Costello, and “The Slider” by T.Rex.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I’d love to say I’m a big enough person to always take it well, but that’s not entirely the case. If I know and trust your opinion, I’ll not only hear you out, but often heed your advice. However, I’m not one to think that just because you’re a mammal you’re entitled to your idiot opinion. Some people think that makes me a jerk. I think we can’t all go around humoring every fool who thinks he’s an expert because he’s saying it loud enough.

10. What does your workspace look like?

One G5 Tower for work, and another for rendering motion projects as needed. Two monitors on the main computer to ease multimedia workflow. Both desktops are Woody Allen screen-grabs from the opening of Annie Hall. A chess board that gets lots of use on breaks throughout the week.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Motion graphics for an online myspace game called “Humans Vs. Vampires” that was a companion piece to a horror film called Beyond the Rave. It was developed by a really cool company called Seize the Media. Up until that it was mostly print.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Ask yourself as many design questions as you do conceptual ones. Concept is important, but it needs to be easy to communicate or it fails. Avoid the ethereal nonsense that only you can understand. You’re a designer, so let that be the language you use. If you only wanted to babble about Kierkegaard, you should have been a philosophy major.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Probably the time I spent at Hatch Show Print. Or maybe the wedding invites I did for a musician I admired long before he found my work online.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Hopefully my fantasy of being a children’s illustrator/author will have come into reality. I try not to plan that far ahead. I hope I’ve done a lot of exciting and different things in between now and then.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
1) Eric Skillman (ericskillman.blogspot.com): Because his DVD covers and art direction for the Criterion Collection are second to none. I’d say I hope I’m working for them in 15 years, but by then movies will be piped right into our brain anyway.

2) Yewknee (Yewknee.com): He’s a designer buddy of my brothers in Nashville who runs a sort of taste-maker blog. He’s got a great eye for top-knotch design. Also a great interest in music, as you might expect coming from Nashville.

3) Erin Zamrzla (ErinZam.com): I went to school with this girl, and her custom hand-bound books that she sells on Etsy are absolutely the bee’s knees. She’s also the nicest person you’ll meet. Her work will make you feel completely dull by comparison.

Michael…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit Michael you should do that now: Visit http://jordangraycreative.com or leave him a comment here! :)