Jim Riswold–who was inducted into The One Club Creative Hall of Fame in 2013, and has the distinction of being the first copywriter hired by Dan Wieden for independent advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy–passed away last Friday (8/9) in his Portland home, with his children by his side, at the age of 66.
Riswold is renowned for his groundbreaking ad campaigns, most notably for Nike. His commercials “Bo Knows,” “Hello World” featuring Tiger Woods, and the seminal work that paired Michael Jordan and Spike Lee (as Mars Blackmon) defined a new era in advertising and entertainment, as well as selling shoes.
James Paul (Jim) Riswold was born on December 7, 1957, in Seattle, Wash. to Paul and Paularose Riswold, and joined by his younger sisters Sheila and Marilee with whom he enjoyed lifelong, close-knit friendships. He began writing after the 4th grade when his teacher suggested he take a creative writing class in summer school. He studied philosophy, history, and communications at the University of Washington for seven years, graduating in 1983. He took a copywriter job with a Seattle agency. He networked with other up-and-coming writers before introducing himself to the founders of a small new agency called Wieden+Kennedy at an award show dinner in Seattle. Riswold was hired as a staff copywriter, reporting directly to Dan Wieden and David Kennedy in early 1984, and partnering with junior art director Susan Hoffman.
Riswold helped pitch and win work for Honda Scooters that featured Lou Reed, Grace Jones, Sandra Bernhardt, and Miles Davis. His passion for pairing products with unlikely talent would be a lifelong throughline in his career as a writer and artist. He went on to create and write for some of Nike, Inc.’s most iconic advertising campaigns, in which he advocated 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 in 1996 with a TV spot called “Hello World.” He most recently wrote Nike’s farewell message in January 2024 when the 27-year partnership ended.
Riswold became an agency partner in 1992, and remained involved with the agency, despite retiring twice until he passed. The first time he retired, in 2005, was to pursue a non-commercial artist career and to continue his recovery from chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a diagnosis he received in late 2000. Riswold was no stranger to cancer. He fought it in various forms for over two decades, and made it central in his art. He had prostate cancer which came back three times, and then in the end, died after living with interstitial lung disease.
He would eventually work with renowned physician-scientist Dr. Brian Druker who developed the drug Imatinib, also known as Gleevec and Glivec. They shared the stage to give a TEDx Portland talk in 2011 about their paths crossing, the revolutionary new drug, and Riswold’s art, which was provocative, playful, dark, and absurd, and his commentary on facing monsters and bullies.
Dan Wieden had earlier recalled: “He burst onto the scene 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 bitter best. Jim sat down and wrote an article for Esquire magazine titled ‘Hitler Saved My Life.’” Riswold later wrote a creative hybrid memoir of his experience with two forms of cancer and emerging as an artist under the same title.
Riswold returned to Wieden+Kennedy at the behest of agency founder Wieden to helm the agency’s internal school–W+K12. He mentored up-and-coming creatives for years, many of whom have become creative leaders at the world’s largest agencies and W+K.
He retired again to continue his creative pursuits further, contributing art to group and solo exhibitions at art museums and galleries such as Augen Gallery, Hallie Ford Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and many more. He has made commissions for creative agencies and businesses, and he continued to lecture and mentor young artists until his health prevented him from traveling as much as he would have liked to, as conditions arose associated with his cancer.
Riswold was honored with more than 100 advertising awards and accolades during his career. Newsweek named Riswold one of the 100 most influential people in American culture.
He returned to Wieden+Kennedy again, at the behest of the agency’s global CCO, Karl Lieberman. Riswold helped memorialize David Kennedy and Dan Wieden as they passed within a year of each other, and he consulted with creative teams regularly, even working on campaigns for MLB and Nike. He continued to create art for shows in Portland, Seattle, and beyond. “I wake up every day with new ideas for new shows and new art,” he told his colleagues in late 2023 as he prepared to open his latest show at Augen Gallery called “TWO WARS IN ONE (FEATURING PUTIN’S BIG PARADE AND THE (UN)CIVIL WAR, 1861-2023).”
People from all walks of life and throughout the advertising industry were positively influenced by Riswold. On the occasion of SHOOT’s 40th anniversary back in 2000, DGA Award-winning director Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man reflected on his mentors, one of whom was Riswold. Buckley said of Riswold, “He took advertising to the next level. When I was at ChiatDay, I remember seeing the Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon campaign in the late ’80s for Nike. It became a part of pop culture in a weird way, and melded advertising and pop culture together as embodied in ‘Just Do It.’”
Buckley noted that Riswold re-introduced “true characters, quirky characters, back into advertising. Morris Blackmon was a personality, not your normal ad 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 as a director on two Nike campaigns with Riswold. He’s a great guy and great to work with. The Nike stuff assumes consumers are intelligent. You’re laughing. You get what’s funny. And ‘Just Do It’ kind of revolutionized the thinking behind theme lines. Up until that point, the line was product-driven. With Nike, the theme line became a philosophy bigger than the product itself. It helped to 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 Kelley 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 asked that any gifts be made to the Interstitial Lung Disease Program at OHSU and the Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU.
