Gary Koepke is a creative director and co-founder of the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based creative and communications agency

Modernista! Modernista! was a creative and communications agency based in Boston, Massachusetts. The agency represented Sears, Showtime, Product (RED), the National Park Foundation, Nickelodeon, Food Should Taste Good, Chug, Sophos, Jack Wills, Boulder Digit ...

Early career

Koepke began his career working with a number of major publications and brands. He served as founding creative director of '' Vibe'' magazine and produced award-winning works including ''26'' magazine for AGFA, the design of ''Musician'' magazine and Benetton's ''Colors'' magazine, ''World Tour'' for

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financia ...

Software, and ''SoHo Journal'' for SoHo Partnership. He served as SVP, Creative Director for

J.Crew J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dr ...

and Creative Director for

Wieden+Kennedy Wieden+Kennedy (W+K; earlier styled ''Wieden & Kennedy'') is an American independent global advertising agency best known for its work for Nike. Founded by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy, and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, it is one of the l ...

Portland, where he helped open that agency's New York office. Koepke designed

David Byrne David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...

's book of photography, ''Strange Ritual''; directed the "Slow Burn"

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

for

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

; and directed the U2 video "Window in the Skies," which was named Best Video at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He also worked with DJ Paul Oakenfold to create the visuals for his 2008 World Tour.

Modernista!

Koepke founded Modernista! with Lance Jensen in 2000. Jensen left the agency in December 2010. Modernista! is an independent agency with clients such as Sears, Product (RED), the

National Park Foundation The National Park Foundation (NPF) is the official charity of the National Park Service (NPS) and its national park sites. The NPF was chartered by Congress in 1967 with a charge to "further the conservation of natural, scenic, historic, scientif ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

, Food Should Taste Good, Chug,

Sophos Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company. Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management. Sophos is primarily ...

, Jack Wills, Boulder Digital Works,

Doc to Dock Doc to Dock is a Brooklyn, New York-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that sends donated medical supplies and equipment to hospitals and clinics in Africa and Haiti. It was founded in 2005 by cardiologist and medical professor Bruce Charash. ...

, Stop Handgun Violence, and the Art Institute of Boston. In the past, Modernista! has created marketing campaigns for clients such as

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

, Palm,

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

TIAA-CREF The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA, formerly TIAA-CREF), is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, ...

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

, Gap,

Anheuser-Busch Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple glo ...

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

, and Converse. Modernista! was named Regional Agency of the Year by ''AdWeek'' in 2004 and has won many other industry and creative awards. One version of its

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

was a finalist in the Webby Awards and the

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

Web Awards. The website was also selected for the ''Communication Arts'' ''Interactive Annual'' and the ''ID Design'' ''Annual'' and was recognized by the D&AD Awards. In addition, Modernista!'s redesign of ''BusinessWeek'' magazine took first place at the International Design Awards. In the final years, Modernista! moved aggressively into

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development duri ...

and communications and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, although it stresses that it remains medium-agnostic. One of its more interesting final projects was an alternative reality game leading up to Season Five of the ''

Dexter Dexter may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Dexter, the main character of the American animated series ''Dexter's Laboratory'' that aired from 1996 to 2003 * Dexter, a fictional character in the British Diary of a Bad Man#Main, web series ''Diar ...

'' TV show. In spring 2011 Modernista! shuttered its doors due to the sudden exit of co-founder Lance Jensen.

SapientNitro

Fifteen months after the Boston-based Modernista! shut down, Koepke, joined

SapientNitro Publicis Sapient is an American digital consulting company, founded as Sapient in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990 by Jerry Greenberg and J. Stuart Moore. On February 6, 2015, Sapient became a fully owned division of French advertising giant Pub ...

as global ECD of brand content innovation.

Personal life

Koepke is a musician and painter. His work has been shown at the DNP Gallery in Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koepke, Gary Living people American businesspeople Wieden+Kennedy people Year of birth missing (living people)