PORTLAND, Ore. –
Jim Riswold – inducted into the One Club’s Creative Hall of Fame in 2013 and honored as the first copywriter hired by Dan Wieden for the independent advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy – passed away last Friday (8/9) at his home in Portland at the age of 66, surrounded by his children.
Riswold is known for his groundbreaking advertising campaigns, most notably for Nike. His commercials “Bo Knows,” “Hello World” with Tiger Woods, and groundbreaking work with Michael Jordan and Spike Lee (as Mars Blackmon) defined a new era in advertising, entertainment, and shoe sales.
James Paul (Jim) Riswold was born on December 7, 1957, in Seattle, Washington, to Paul and Paularose Riswold. He also had younger sisters Sheila and Marilee, with whom he maintained lifelong, close friendships. He began writing after fourth grade, when his teacher suggested he take a creative writing course in summer school. He studied philosophy, history, and communications at the University of Washington for seven years, graduating in 1983. He took a job as a copywriter at a Seattle agency. He networked with other aspiring writers before introducing himself to the founders of a small new agency called Wieden+Kennedy at an awards dinner in Seattle. Riswold was hired as a staff copywriter, reporting directly to Dan Wieden and David Kennedy in early 1984 and working with junior art director Susan Hoffman.
Riswold helped win contracts for Honda Scooters, which featured Lou Reed, Grace Jones, Sandra Bernhardt and Miles Davis. His passion for pairing products with unusual talent would be a lifelong thread in his career as a writer and artist. He created and wrote for some of Nike, Inc.’s most iconic advertising campaigns, championing pairing Bo Diddley with Bo Jackson and Spike Lee with Michael Jordan. He also helped introduce Tiger Woods to the world as a professional golfer and Nike athlete with a 1996 TV spot called “Hello World.” Most recently, he wrote Nike’s farewell message in January 2024, when the 27-year partnership ended.
Riswold became a partner in the agency in 1992 and remained associated with the agency despite retiring twice until his death. The first time he retired was in 2005 to pursue a non-commercial artist career and continue his recovery from chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a diagnosis he received in late 2000. Riswold was no stranger to cancer. He battled it in various forms for over two decades and made it the focus of his art. His leukemia came back in 2011, he had prostate cancer that came back three times, and finally died after living with interstitial lung disease.
He eventually collaborated with renowned physician and scientist Dr. Brian Druker, who developed the drug imatinib, also known as Gleevec and Glivec. They appeared onstage together in 2011 to give a TEDx Portland talk about the crossing of their paths, the revolutionary new drug, and Riswold’s art, which was provocative, playful, dark, and absurd, as well as his commentary on fighting monsters and bullies.
Dan Wieden had previously recalled: “He showed up with a photography exhibit that showed Hitler and his henchmen as a child’s dysfunctional doll collection. It was funny, it was uncomfortable; it was Jim at his most bitter. Jim sat down and wrote an article for Esquire magazine called ‘Hitler Saved My Life.'” Riswold later wrote a creative hybrid autobiography under the same title about his experiences with two types of cancer and his rise as an artist.
At the behest of agency founder Wieden, Riswold returned to Wieden+Kennedy to run the agency’s in-house school – W+K12. He spent years mentoring aspiring creatives, many of whom went on to become creative leaders at the world’s largest agencies and at W+K.
He again retired to continue his creative endeavors, contributing artwork to group and solo exhibitions at art museums and galleries such as Augen Gallery, Hallie Ford Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and many others. He completed commissioned work for creative agencies and corporations and continued to lecture and mentor young artists until his health prevented him from traveling as much as he would have liked due to the development of ailments related to his cancer.
Riswold has received more than 100 advertising awards and accolades throughout his career. Newsweek named Riswold one of the 100 most influential people in American culture.
He returned to Wieden+Kennedy once again at the behest of the agency’s global CCO, Karl Lieberman. Riswold helped honor David Kennedy and Dan Wieden, who passed away within a year of each other, and regularly advised creative teams and even worked on campaigns for MLB and Nike. He continued to create art for exhibitions in Portland, Seattle, and beyond. “I wake up every day with new ideas for new exhibitions and new art,” he told colleagues in late 2023 as he prepared to open his latest exhibition at Augen Gallery, titled “TWO WARS IN ONE (FEATURING PUTIN’S BIG PARADE AND THE (UN)CIVIL WAR, 1861-2023).”
People from all walks of life and the entire advertising industry have been positively influenced by Riswold. SHOOTAt the 40th anniversary in 2000, DGA Award-winning director Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man remembered his mentors, one of whom was Riswold. Buckley said of Riswold, “He took advertising to the next level. When I was at ChiatDay, I saw the Spike Lee as Morris Blackmon campaign for Nike in the late ’80s. It became part of pop culture in a strange way, merging advertising and pop culture, as embodied in ‘Just Do It.'”
Buckley noted that Riswold “introduced real characters, quirky characters, back into advertising. Morris Blackmon was a personality, not your normal advertising character. My work as a director is largely character driven. No matter what commercial you get, you try to figure out the character. I worked with Riswold as a director on two Nike campaigns. He’s a great guy and great to work with. The Nike stuff assumes that consumers are intelligent. They laugh. They understand what’s funny. And ‘Just Do It’ kind of revolutionized the thinking behind the theme lines. Up until that point, the line had been product driven. With Nike, the theme line became a philosophy that was bigger than the product itself. It helped change the course of advertising.”
Riswold is survived by his children Hallie and Jake and their mother, his ex-wife Melinda, his sister Sheila Roe and her husband David Roe and their children Kelly and Marissa, his sister Marilee Hooper and her husband Todd Hooper and their son Ryan, his cousin and best friend Derek Ruddy, his cousins Randy Gangnes and Reed Ruddy, and his many friends and colleagues.
The family has requested that any donations be made to the OHSU Interstitial Lung Disease Program and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Jim Riswold – inducted into the One Club’s Creative Hall of Fame in 2013 and honored as the first copywriter hired by Dan Wieden for the independent advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy – passed away last Friday (8/9) at his home in Portland at the age of 66, surrounded by his children.
Riswold is known for his groundbreaking advertising campaigns, most notably for Nike. His commercials “Bo Knows,” “Hello World” with Tiger Woods, and groundbreaking work with Michael Jordan and Spike Lee (as Mars Blackmon) defined a new era in advertising, entertainment, and shoe sales.
James Paul (Jim) Riswold was born on December 7, 1957, in Seattle, Washington, to Paul and Paularose Riswold. He also had younger sisters Sheila and Marilee, with whom he maintained lifelong, close friendships. He began writing after fourth grade, when his teacher suggested he take a creative writing course in summer school. He studied philosophy, history, and communications at the University of Washington for seven years, graduating in 1983. He took a job as a copywriter at a Seattle agency. He networked with other aspiring writers before introducing himself to the founders of a small new agency called Wieden+Kennedy at an awards dinner in Seattle. Riswold was hired as a staff copywriter, reporting directly to Dan Wieden and David Kennedy in early 1984 and working with junior art director Susan Hoffman.
Riswold helped win Honda Scooters work that featured Lou Reed, Grace Jones, Sandra Bernhardt and Miles Davis. His passion for pairing products with unusual talent would be a lifelong thread in his career as a writer and artist. He created and wrote for some of Nike, Inc.’s most famous commercials. … Read more
