Spotlight: Jim Mountjoy
ART DIRECTOR
Markers:
Sometimes a single brush stroke suggests the whole. Jim actually graduated before he graduated; by the time he received his degree (with honors), he already had a working agency with four clients, making ads – and profits. The enthusiasm he had then, he rekindles daily.
During a 30-plus year career spent solely at the agency bearing his name, he has conceived and produced a copious body of work and received numerous national and international honors: the One Show, The New York Art Directors, International Film Festival, Communication Arts, Graphis and others. He has twice been named by ADWEEK magazine as the Southeast’s top creative director and a finalist three times for the Stephen Kelly Award for the best magazine ad campaign in America.
But just as notable are the many senior level creative people at top shops around the country who have begun their careers at Jim’s firm, under his tutelage. Because, now more than ever, growing talent is no less important than having talent.
Jim currently serves on the Board of Directors for the International One Club and the Board of Advisors for the Creative Circus, a college in Atlanta for film, design and marketing.
The University of North Carolina named Jim to its Hall of Fame.
Family:
Wife Carol is Chief Renal Pathologist at Carolinas Medical Center, a career whose forensic elements relieve Jim of the need to watch C.S.I. reruns. Of the two teenaged children, stepson Fil aspires to be a starting LHP in the Johan Santana mode for a college team. Stepdaughter Morgan, a precocious 13-year-old, defines the term “consumer” when it comes to books.
Passions:
Seeking the story and artisans within the wineglass. Guest lecturing on communications and design at Queens College. The sculpture of Bernini, the mind of William Blake, the art of Alchemy, the Saturday Financial Times. Rain, Steam, Speed by J.M.W. Turner. Ludwig Van and early Led Zep.
Words:
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." – Emerson
