Jade purple brown

The visual artist and art director on her blossoming career, personal growth, and merging her love for fashion and art.

“Success for me is when I can look at a goal I’ve set, or a past journal entry, and see that I’ve grown as a person while being on the journey to achieving my goals. ”

What would you say has been a defining moment of your career thus far?

Getting the opportunity to create social content for Toyota really made me realize that I could make a good living creating art. They contacted me because they saw value in my vision, and gave me the full creative freedom to create content that I felt strongly about. Getting that type of support from such a global brand, really made me realize that my career as an artist can be anything I want it to be.

In making leaps, such as moving from Chicago to New York, what were the biggest challenge and the most rewarding aspect?

Oddly enough, I don't have some big war story about moving to New York like most who choose to live in this wild city. I had already been preparing and saving to the move to the city for a few years, so I was able to move to a spacious place in the Bronx, and snag a job as an Art Director within only a few weeks of moving. Plus, Chicago & New York are very similar cities, so I didn't feel too out of place when I first moved here. The way my life has come together since moving has really helped me to indicate that I'm exactly where I should be in this moment in time.

How to do you measure success in your personal and professional life?

Growth is the biggest thing for me. I'm always setting goals, journaling, and reading books in order to become the best version of my self. Success for me is when I can look at a goal I've set, or a past journal entry, and see that I've grown as a person while being on the journey to achieving my goals.

In what ways would you say you've grown the most since your blog days? I've only seen your evolution through the lens of social media, but from personal experience, there's usually a lot of self-reflection and self-work involved behind the scenes.

The vision of who I'm striving to be and the things I want to achieve have changed drastically. In the beginning, I wanted to become a stylist for fashion editorials. I decided to create a fashion blog with all of the things in the industry I loved at the moment and outfit posts. I also enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago as a Fashion & Marketing major, in order to get a business background to help support my career as a fashion stylist.

While I was in the program they taught us the basics of Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign to create marketing materials, and I quickly fell in love. With the help of online tutorials, I started using the programs in my own time to create wacky designs. I slowly started to figure out that my true passion was making art and that I had a natural talent for it.

Now through illustration, design, and art direction, I'm able to merge my love for fashion and art in a way that feels most natural and fulfilling for me.

To view all of Jade's work, visit www.JadePurpleBrown.com.

Jade Purple Brown