Gary Koepke (November 14, 1955 – March 20, 2024) was a creative director and co-founder of the

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

-based creative and communications agency Modernista!-

Early career

Koepke began his career working with a number of major publications and brands. He served as founding creative director of ''

Vibe Vibe, alternatively '' vibes,'' is short for ''vibration''. A "vibe" is an emotional reaction to the aura or energy felt to belong to a person, place or thing. Vibe may also refer to: People * DJ Vibe (born 1968), Portuguese DJ * Lasse Vibe (b ...

'' magazine and produced award-winning works including ''26'' magazine for

AGFA Agfa-Gevaert N.V. (Agfa) is a Belgian-German multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes Analog photography, analogue and digital imaging products, software, and systems. The company began as a dye manufacturer in 1867 ...

, the design of ''Musician'' magazine, Benetton's ''Colors'' magazine, ''World Tour'' for

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (D&B) 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 a ...

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, dre ...

, and Creative Director for

Wieden+Kennedy Wieden+Kennedy (W+K; earlier styled ''Wieden & Kennedy'') is an American 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 largest independent ...

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

David Byrne David Byrne (; born May 14, 1952) is an American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American New wave music, new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has ...

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

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

for

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

; 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 Paul Mark Oakenfold (; born 30 August 1963), formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer and trance DJ. He has provided over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Ma ...

to create the visuals for his 2008 World Tour.

Modernista!

Koepke founded Modernista! with Lance Jensen in 2000. Modernista! is an independent agency with clients such as

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

, 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 (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

, Food Should Taste Good, Chug,

Sophos Sophos Limited is a British security software and hardware company. It develops and markets managed security services and cybersecurity software and hardware, such as managed detection and response, incident response and endpoint security s ...

, Jack Wills, Boulder Digital Works, Doc to Dock,

Stop Handgun Violence Stop Handgun Violence is a Boston, Massachusetts-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to reduce and prevent injuries and deaths caused by firearms in the United States. The group advocates personal responsibility, public awareness, s ...

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

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

Palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae ** List of Arecaceae genera **Palm oil * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music ...

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 an American financial services organization that is a private provider of financial retirement services in the academic, resea ...

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

, 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 ...

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

, 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 any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

was a finalist in the Webby Awards and the

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

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 Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. ...

Awards. In addition, Modernista!'s redesign of ''BusinessWeek'' magazine took first place at the International Design Awards. In its final years, Modernista! moved aggressively into

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based Information technology, digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and service ...

, communications, and

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

. One of its more interesting final projects was an

alternative reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by inte ...

leading up to Season Five of the ''

Dexter Dexter may refer to: People * Dexter (given name) * Dexter (surname) * Dexter (singer), Brazilian rapper Marcos Fernandes de Omena (born 1973) * Famous Dex, also known as Dexter, American rapper Dexter Tiewon Gore Jr. (born 1993) Places United ...

'' 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 as global ECD of brand content innovation.

Personal life

Koepke was a musician and painter. His work has been shown at the DNP Gallery in Japan. He died on March 20, 2024.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koepke, Gary 1955 births 2024 deaths American businesspeople Wieden+Kennedy people Businesspeople from Boston