Gary Koepke is a creative director and co-founder of the Boston-based creative and communications agency Modernista!

Modernista!

Modernista! was a creative and communications agency based in Boston, Massachusetts. The agency represented Sears, Showtime,Product , the National Park Foundation, Nickelodeon, Food Should Taste Good, Chug, Sophos, Jack Wills, Boulder Digital Works, Doc to Dock, Stop Handgun Violence, and the Art...

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

Agfa-Gevaert

Agfa-Gevaert N.V. is a European multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes analogue and digital imaging products and systems, as well as IT solutions. The company has three divisions. Agfa Graphics offers integrated prepress and industrial inkjet systems to the...

, the design of Musician magazine

Musician (magazine)

Musician was a monthly magazine that covered news and information about American popular music. Initially called "Music America", it was founded in 1976 by Sam Holdsworth and Gordon Baird. The two friends borrowed $20,000 from relatives and started the publication in a barn in Colorado...

 and Benetton’s Colors magazine, World Tour for Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet is a Fortune 500 public company headquartered in Short Hills, New Jersey, USA that provides information on businesses and corporations for use in credit decisions, B2B marketing and supply chain management...

 Software, and SoHo Journal for SoHo Partnership. He served as Creative Director for both J.Crew

J.Crew

J.Crew Group, Inc. is a 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, loungewear, wedding, bags, hair accessories, belts, jewelry, and shoes. As of January 30, 2010, it...

 and Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...

 Portland, where he helped open that agency’s New York office. Koepke designed David Byrne

David Byrne

David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...

’s book of photography, Strange Ritual; directed the “Slow Burn” music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

; and directed the U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

 video “Window in the Skies,” which was named Best Video at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He also worked with DJ Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold

Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

 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)

Product Red

Product Red, styled as RED, is a brand licensed to partner companies such as Nike, American Express , Apple Inc., Starbucks, Converse, Bugaboo, Penguin Classics , Gap, Emporio Armani, Hallmark and Dell...

, the National Park Foundation

National Park Foundation

Chartered by Congress, the National Park Foundation is the official charity of America’s nearly 400 national parks. Funds contributed to the Foundation are invested directly into the national parks...

, Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon (TV channel)

Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...

, Food Should Taste Good, Chug, Sophos

Sophos

Sophos is a developer and vendor of security software and hardware, including anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, network access control, encryption software and data loss prevention for desktops, servers, email systems and other network gateways....

, Jack Wills, Boulder Digital Works, Doc to Dock

Doc to Dock

Doc to Dock is a Brooklyn, New York-based 501 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

Stop Handgun Violence

Stop Handgun Violence is a Boston, Massachusetts-based 501 non-profit organization that works to reduce and prevent injuries and deaths caused by firearms in the United States...

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

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

, Palm

Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...

, Showtime TIAA-CREF

TIAA-CREF

Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading retirement provider for people who work in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields...

, Napster

Napster

Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

, Gap

Gap (clothing retailer)

The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

, Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

, MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

, and Converse.

Modernista! was named Regional Agency of the Year by AdWeek

Adweek

Adweek is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1978....

 in 2004 and has won many other industry and creative awards. One version of its website

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 was a finalist in the Webby

Webby Awards

A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....

 Awards and the SXSW

South by Southwest

South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

 Web Awards. The website was also selected for the Communication Arts Interactive Annual and the ID Design

I.D. (magazine)

I.D. was a magazine covering the art, business and culture of design. It was published eight times a year by F+W Media....

 Annual and was recognized by the D&AD

D&AD

Design and Art Direction is a British educational charity which exists to promote excellence in design and advertising...

 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 and communications and social media

Social media

The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

, 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 (TV series)

Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...

 TV show.

In the spring of 2011 Modernista ran out of money and was forced to close.

Honors and Awards

Personally, Koepke has garnered gold awards at all the major design/advertising shows. His work has been shown at the DNP Gallery in Japan, which has named him one of America’s top designers. It is also in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

 in New York.

Koepke sits on the boards of Stop Handgun Violence and Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

. He is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences or IADAS was founded in 1998 in New York to help drive the progress of the Internet and evolving forms of new media. The academy selects the nominees and winners for the Webby Awards, and their European equivalent, the Lovie Awards.Membership...

. He has also served on the Communications Task Force of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and he was chairman of the American Photography Annual from 1998 to 2003.

Koepke is an avid musician and painter.