Known as the “father” of direct response advertising, John Caples wrote one of the most quoted lines in advertising history: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano… but when I started to play!” He spent all but two of his 57-year career at BBDO, where in one of the depression’s bleakest years (1930),…

Joe Pytka is a dominant force and creator of some of the best and most well-known television commercials ever made. He began his career at WRS Motion Picture and Video Lab in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 70s. The director started shooting shows for WQED and working on documentaries in various capacities, includingSteeltown Blues,Maggies Farm,…

This business is strange. Take it seriously, do your damnedest to make your work intelligent and interesting, and you can be accused of devoting your life to a worthless pursuit. Treat it with little or no respect, as merely a means by which you earn your daily crust, and it can quickly become a sterile,…

Joe Pytka is creator of some of the best and most well-known television commercials ever made. Pytka has directed more than 5,000 ads for some of the world?s largest corporations, and earned many awards and nominations including three Directors Guild of America Commercial Direction Awards and 15 nominations.     Over the past three decades,…

Jim Henson brought a fresh new approach to the world of art direction and design, film and television withSesame Streetand the Muppets, and was one of the most important communicators in the last hundred years. Henson began his television career in 1954 as a puppeteer on a local television show in Washington, DC. The following…

Jim Riswold spent his professional career at Wieden+Kennedy creating memorable and effective campaigns foremost for Nike. His commercials ?Bo Knows;? ?Hello World? featuring Tiger Woods;? and the work that paired Michael Jordan and Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon defined a new era in advertising and entertainment, as well as selling shoes.     After leaving…

Durfee was the first grown-up I met in advertising, and I had been at two agencies before I worked for him at Carl Ally Incorporated. Durfee’s office overlooked the rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the old Villard House, and all of Madison Avenue from 23rd Street to where it narrow and climbs up Carnegie Hill.…

Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel are partners at Winterhouse, a designstudio in northwest Connecticut. Their work focuses on print and online publishing, educational and cultural institutions, and design programs of social impact. They are the 2009-10 recipients of Rockefeller Foundation funding to develop a global initiative around design and social innovation; the winners of a…

Wheres Jerry? Riney said it a lot. Almost as often as I dont see an idea here. Of course, it was never about finding Jerry. Jerry was not elusive. The mad inventor simply wanted to see his machine-builder. The one whod engineer a notion to life. Theyd have a brief conversation followed by Jerry walking…

Jerry Della Femina (born 1936) is an American advertising executive and restaurateur. Starting from a poor Italian background in Brooklyn, he eventually became chairman of Della Femina Travisano & Partners, an agency which he founded with Ron Travisano in the 1960s. Over the next two decades they grew the company into a major advertising house…