Jeremy at Work

Our Brand Development Director, Jeremy is often referred to by his less formal (but just as appropriate) title, Making Connections Guy, branding being, at heart, the discipline of making connections among business needs, cultural movements, consumer worldview, and language (verbal and visual alike). Which partly justifies his background, a potluck of undergraduate degrees in English and in pedagogical studies, a Master of Divinity, and a terminal degree in Creative Nonfiction, all of which contributed to his teaching over 100 university-level courses, to his writing over 50 published essays, and to his creative work for national brands like AT&T, the University of Oregon, Merck, and Buffalo Wild Wings, all of which he brought to his desk at MarketPlace in 2011.

Since then, Jeremy has used his dexterity with words, his delight in popular culture, and his dots-connecting drive to develop food brands, to build and rebuild pet brands, to name dozens of technologies and companies and products, and to interpret and anticipate cultural trends for the benefit of both MarketPlace and our partners. Also, out of curiosity and an inexplicable compulsion, he took up previously unfamiliar tools one year and helped design our office space. While formulating a dog food.

A MINI HISTORY

Prior to joining MarketPlace, Jeremy wrote video scripts, named products and companies across the country, played over 700 games of Scrabble in one year, wrote a travelogue while teaching and speaking in southern India, drove an ice cream truck, and reviewed movies.

Jeremy at Home

A profile of Jeremy at home would include, at minimum, the following:

  • Lesser-known reality competition shows
  • Pedestrian gin and tonic
  • Planning and sketching home repairs
  • Making toast without a toaster
chair design

RECENTLY PINNED

In the living rooms of friends; in coffee shops and restaurants; and in certain business spaces, I notice furniture. Specifically, I’m drawn to chairs. And I’m heartened by what I see: real wood, conscious design, homage and innovation, and a gaining, ultimately, of form on function.

I’m not a student of architecture or design theory, but I trust that I can apply to others the principle that I recognize in my life, the idea that the aesthetic choices we make reveal not so much who we currently are as what we hope for, form giving outward shape to our inward needs.

Perhaps this is a choice available only to those with the luxury to choose, but the culture in which I live typically has that choice, and what emotional longings it expresses are no less meaningful for that luxury.

These chairs, as I read them, express hope and desire: for the thoughtful use of our resources, for the valuing of individual craftsmanship over mass fabrication, for the stripping away of veneer.

Memorable Meal

Crawfish boil is his death row meal (he’s not on death row).

As human beings, we have a natural compulsion to fill empty spaces.

- Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor