Jordan McCracken-Foster ’13

Jordan was a Crossroads lifer and an “art-kid” with an abiding love of animation. “I think most of my old friends remember me as the kid always drawing Buzz Lightyear or Bugs Bunny,” he recalled with a laugh. Jordan parlayed his interest into a career as a concept and visual development artist working in the video game space. 

His artistic nature was encouraged at Crossroads. Jordan designed his fifth-grade class sweatshirt with teacher Khalid Birdsong, himself a Black artist who served as an early mentor. In high school, figure drawing helped Jordan build a strong technical foundation, and graphic design classes introduced him to Adobe Photoshop, which is essential in his process. Though he still loves the tactile experience of pen on paper, he mostly draws digitally now, on a Wacom Cintiq or IPad Pro. 

Jordan earned a BA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in game development, with a specialty in concept art, at Academy of Art University. Despite the unlucky timing of a spring 2020 graduation, Jordan landed a project with DreamWorks Animation TV in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Since then, Jordan has created animated backgrounds for Netflix, brought to life the environments that players skateboard through in the game SkateX and transformed homes and wardrobes in the mobile game Project Makeover. He is a teaching artist on the free education platform Art Prof and an adjunct professor at Academy of Art University. Jordan shares his process and independent work on his YouTube channel, The JoMcFo Show, including the web comic “Shadow Boxers: The Path of Light.”

He spoke at Crossroads in February as part of the Middle School’s new artist speaker series. “Seeing the next generation of Crossroads students felt like a full-circle moment,” he said. “After the talk, students expressed their interest and asked for advice. It was like the only thing that had changed was the ages of the people, but the love and support were still there.”