About

Jess Crowell Astrella

illustrator | designer

she/her

I am a graphic designer and illustrator in Portland, OR.
🖥 ✏️ I'm a graphic designer and illustrator based in Portland, Oregon pursuing visual brand identity and campaign work, presentation & marketing design opportunities, and custom illustration commissions.

A detail-oriented creative with a heart for client relationships, communicating big ideas clearly, and making it all beautiful in the process. I love to make an idea into something we can see and understand.
I make it pretty, pretty much.

📈 Previous invaluable corporate experience at Fortune 500 companies (IGN Entertainment and HP Enterprise Services) from 2008-2013.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 When I'm not at my desk, I'm an active mom of two, spending my time volunteering, yapping with my friends and updating our 1960's daylight ranch house.

I start a lot of work analog with gouache, colored pencil, calligraphy nibs + ink, Blackwing pencils, and brush pens- then magick it all together with the power of the Adobe Suite (mostly Illustrator). I also love to work digitally in Procreate, and the Google Work Suite, and know my way around a Squarespace backend.

I also have a ton of print and creative direction experience from my time owning a bespoke paper goods + invitations company, Boarding School Collective.

I love to work with collaborative, focused,
thoughtful clients who aim to bring something
beautiful, creative, fun, and empowering to market.

After stints in NYC, Austin, and a weird few months on a farm in Costa Rica, I’m right back where I started, in Portland, Oregon with my family - including the world’s best dog, Mozzarella, that you can only see pictures of on Instagram at:
@j_ro_cro

(An aside: my full name was Jessica Rose Crowell, which is where the nickname/old brand "J.RoCro" comes from - but I got married and blindly fell into the trap of the patriarchy and changed my name and chaos now reigns in the branding department of my life. It's fine, I’m fine).

Want to work with me? I’m looking to:

• Create graphic content for your brand or business in both digital + print
• Freelance contract work with creative agencies here in Portland
• Publish editorial illustrations (everything from spot to full-page)
• Partner with writers to illustrate children’s books
• Accept only select custom, private-client art commissions + portraits per year