Moss
→ Co-Founder → Creative Director
The desktop—home to work as we know it. First introduced nearly 40 years ago, it was born out of a metaphor for the office: a space to store files and folders. Little has changed since. But what if your work was never meant for the cubicle? What if your process doesn’t fit neatly into a box but, rather, demands thinking outside of one? This is why my co-founder Aiden Symes and I created Moss. Moss rethinks the desktop into a collaborative workflow tool as fluid as creativity itself—where teams can organize, experiment, and iterate all in one place. If file folders are cubicles, Moss is the open floor plan.
THE PRODUCT
Moss was born out of frustration with the status quo. Why are creative teams still working out of files and folders? Aiden and I wanted to create a product that would allow users to seamlessly aggregate references from online sources, working Photoshop files, and videos—all in one space. No matter the file size, we wanted users to quickly drag and drop content into a collaborative canvas interface for their team, with updates appearing in real time as they work. This led to our product's key differentiator: Tethering. When dropped into the workspace, Moss quickly generates a lightweight preview of any creative file type for your team to see. It also monitors the source file and displays updates as changes are made. Users can open any file directly from Moss or quickly locate the source file, allowing them to access their work through Moss rather than the archaic desktop system. In 2020, we hired New York based Philosophie to build us a web-based prototype to share with investors. After raising money, we hired our team and built our MVP.
THE BRAND
As creatives, building a brand from scratch was an exciting and daunting task. We worked with Caleb and team at Boston-based RegretsOnly to help crystalize our voice and develop the visual identity. We set out to create an identity that communicates what Moss is and does as a product while simultaneously speaking to visual thinkers on their terms.
SYSTEM & BEHAVIORS
We developed a system where composition, found imagery, and product UI work together to form narrative vignettes. These ephemeral layouts are inspired by the serendipitous nature of the creative process, where train of thought can take you anywhere. For Moss, proximity, contrast, iteration and flow aren’t just compositional notions, they convey the natural benefits of our product: a workspace designed to cultivate better ideas. We wanted the imagery itself to evoke our name — lush and alive, but never overly curated. Part collection of screengrabs, part encyclopedia of inspiration. All part of the process.
CUSTOM ICONOGRAPHY
We commissioned illustrator Max Guther to design and render 3D icons to be used across our product and marketing.
MOSSWORKSPACE.COM
One of the biggest challenges of Moss was marketing the benefits in an engaging yet concise way. With the core brand in place, we designed and developed the marketing site. On theme for Moss, this website was ambitious for such a small team and tight timeline. Aiden was still working on it when we arrived in Barcelona, the night before the first public demo of the product at OFFF creative conference.
TEAM
Moss Product Chief Technology Officer: Matthew Pflueger Design: Aiden Symes & Nick Miller Engineering: Jonny Andrews, Jeremy Philemon Prototyping: Philosophie NY Moss Brand Nick Miller and Aiden Symes RegretsOnly Caleb Halter and Mimi Jiao 3D icons by Max Guther Additional photo illustrations by Zak Jensen Special thanks to all investors and everyone who believed and contributed to this project.
Paramount Network
HBO Max
