InDesigner: Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy is an independent advertising agency with offices in Amsterdam, London, New York, Portland, Shang-hai, and Tokyo. The company emphasizes brand building for such high-profile clients as ESPN, Nike, and Starbucks. Formerly a QuarkXPress shop, W+K began considering a switch when they moved to Mac OS X. Brent Stapleton, pre-press manager at W+K, recalls the assessment process: “We evaluated Quark and Adobe. We got copies of both and set up a team made up of creatives and people in our shop who reported back on their experiences. It took four to five months before we were sure, but pretty early on we had the feeling InDesign was going to come out on top.” Once the agency did move to InDesign, Stapleton said the transition was relatively painless. “Everybody here was used to Quark so we thought they weren’t going to be able to switch easily, but it was maybe a week or two before they were comfortable and using it at the speed they had been using Quark for years. Part of that was similarities between interfaces and key-board shortcuts in the other Creative Suite applications.”

In fact, W+K senior studio artist Chris Thurman noted that for “one of the very first live InDesign projects we worked on here, we used transparencies in the type. And what could have taken days of time in Photoshop and retouching was done much faster and more simply.”

I asked Thurman whether the application change has affected his designs. “Dare I say it made me faster—just don’t tell the clients that! It for sure has helped me in the mechanical stage. So while I don’t think my design has changed, it has become a much easier and quicker process in a lot of ways. There have been some learning

curve balls now and again,” he adds. “I don’t yet have all the quick keys down. But it’s more intuitive for me than that other page layout program we used to use. It’s set up more mathematically so I can be sure everything is lining up as it goes out the door through the mechanical process. Having the options to print and PDF with and without Slug on or off is tremendously helpful.”

Both Stapleton and Thurman cite InDesign’s unexpected boon to the creative concepting process. Thurman notes, “Being able to take a page and duplicate it helps the concept process of thinking: ‘I like where it is. What if I do this…?’ ‘No, that does not work. Get rid of that page,” or ‘Yes, that does work. Move forward.’ Stapleton has observed something similar. “InDesign made everything easier for our creatives,” he says. “They don’t have to jump between programs. They don’t have to go to Photoshop to put two images together. InDesign lets them print out comps, review ideas, and just go with it.”

Starbucks Ads:
Creative Director: Danielle Flagg/Jed Alger
Art Director: Nate Miller

Oregon Ads:
Art Director: Mira Kaddoura
Creative Director: Roger Camp

Nike Ads: 1, 2, 5: Art Director: James Selman/Chris Thurman/Hal Curtis Creative Director: Hal Curtis/Mike Byrne 3, 4: Art Director: James Selman Creative Director: Hal Curtis/Mike Byrne