WhereNext People – An Interview with Creative Director Jeremy K. Spencer
Jeremy’s Bio
Jeremy is an award-winning writer/editor/creative director who brings a rare mix of skills and experience to the WhereNext squad, synthesizing 22-plus years spent working and playing at major media companies and brand agencies to provide the versatile storytelling horsepower our clients want. During almost a decade as a multiple-threat senior editor at iconic adventure title Outside, Jeremy honed his narrative chops, teamed with world-class creatives every day, and traveled the globe to soak up the unique landscapes and perspectives of different cultures. His decades in the media and agency worlds have seen him concept, strategize, and execute powerful audience experiences and integrated marketing campaigns for clients ranging from the Fortune #1 to small local businesses. He’s spent time in the trenches on everything from branding, design, advertising, product, retail, and web to mobile, social, mail, events, EX, and guerrilla. Clients past and present include Adidas, Abercrombie & Kent, Apple, Canva, Facebook, Gatorade, HarperCollins, Levi’s, Max Planck Institutes, Microsoft, Men’s Journal, MTV, Nike, Penguin Random House, Red Bull, REI, Simon & Schuster, Vice, Walmart, Wired, Wolverine, and Xbox. His book The Ocean is forthcoming from Chronicle in 2021.
An Experienced and Adventurous Creative Director
Please give a warm (virtual) welcome to Jeremy K. Spencer, our storytelling agency’s Creative Director, based in Portland, Oregon. Jeremy brings many things to the WhereNext global team, including 22-plus years of experience working with major media companies and brand agencies, a love of adventure and the great outdoors, and a keen eye and ear for a good story. Jeremy shares his memories of life-changing adventures in Scotland, seafood-sampling culinary escapades in Hong Kong, and some top-quality cocktail recipes.
Tell us about yourself.
I grew up half-feral on the jungly edge of Memphis, Tennessee. My time outside of school was mostly spent roaming the vast woods and winding waterways out back of our neighborhood, chasing adventure. While I wasn’t raised on magic mushrooms by gnomes or anything, I certainly acted like it. I was actually raised on books, bikes, music, sports, art, television, video games, and refined sugar by an electron-microscopy research scientist and a metallurgical specialist turned director of natural gas for the biggest three-service municipal utility in the United States. And I have since run through a few passports, so I wouldn’t call myself provincial.
I’m now a couple of decades into a diverse creative career; I live in Portland, Oregon, and have three beautiful daughters; and I consider myself very lucky.
Jeremy on a cyclotouring adventure in the Columbia Gorge
Tell us about your most memorable travel experience.
I live to travel, and there have been so many incredible experiences. These are the times when I’ve felt most alive. But even the most luxurious trips—including five-star hotels and Michelin restaurants in gorgeous ancient cities around the world—lose luster when set against those travels that offered up the most adventure. And since I’m a cycling fanatic, I always think back on big bike trips when I was able to tour a European country solo for ten days or so. I’ve been on dozens of amazing bike tours in the U.S., especially in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s safe to say my most memorable experiences have been had while cyclotouring in Belgium, Switzerland, and Scotland. All were trips of a lifetime, but Scotland stands out (and not just because a contingent of my ancestors hailed from there).
I’d previously hiked a similar route while on assignment, but I came back with a bike, intent on exploring more. From the North Sea to the Atlantic, spending time in both the Lowlands and Highlands, I rode a loaded touring bike over everything from modern pavé to medieval cobbles to antique dirt, climbing and descending through wild park terrain, farmland, and urban routes as I enjoyed the views afforded by the country’s natural and historic landscapes. I sought out and lingered at dozens of historic sites, including the spooky remnants of Bronze Age hillforts, Roman ruins like the Antonine Wall, skeletal kirks and castles all but lost to the centuries, immense country houses hiding in dark forests, and preserved palaces once rife with royal intrigue—and now home to interpretive centers, museum displays, and picnickers in search of prime selfie tableaux commanding views of idyllic surrounds. I took some time to really “discover” Edinburgh, one of the great jewels among world cities, and spent days riding and hiking in and around it. To forgo a discrete adventure in the Athens of the North would’ve been madness.
Exploring the Oregon Outback trail on another bikepacking adventure
On my first day, after climbing the extinct volcano known as Arthur’s Seat for panoramic vistas, I headed straight for the grassy bowl of Princes Street Gardens, an utterly unique park on the site of a drained defensive loch overhung by Edinburgh Castle and other fantasies in stone. Frisbees, bicycles, bagpipers, and sunshine reigned below the great gray monuments. It’s a city park truly without equal.
On the last day of my trip, I took an old coffin road through heathered countryside and then literally dragged my bike up the boggy, pine-forested steeps of Gouk Hill, at the edge of the vast Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. The enigmatic loch lay below, crowned with Inchmurrin, the biggest of the British Isles’ freshwater islands. A dozen miles to the north stood 3,196-foot Ben Lomond, the southernmost of Scotland’s famous Munros. And to the west awaited a thrilling downhill that wound for hours down to Helensburgh and its stony Atlantic beaches, where I would end my trip, as before, among highly affable and slightly soused Scotsmen in a tiny pub called the Royal.
Dead or alive, who would you like to join you on an adventure?
No question: Mr. Herman Melville, America’s greatest author and Shakespeare’s only rival (in English).
What are your travel equipment essentials?
Since I’m a giant gear nerd, it would require a few thousand words to properly lay out the what and why of a complete list, so I’ll just say: comfortable shoes, properly broken in, that you can walk in all day and night. There’s nothing more important for me. Next would be an unlined journal/sketchbook and a fresh Uni-Ball Vision Elite pen (0.8mm, black). After that, I always want one of my favorite bikes along for the journey.
Jeremy’s Bikepacking Essentials: 1. Bike Setup: Bantam All-Road Campeur Disc bike (custom) with Brooks Team Pro Ti saddle // 2. Camp Stuff: Big Agnes Fly Creek HV1 Platinum tent & MSR PocketRocket 2 camp stove // 3. Touring Kit: Mission Workshop Loch utility/cycling shorts & Ibex Fausto merino wool cycling jersey // 4. Gear Bags: Swift Industries Ozette rando bag, Ortlieb Sport-Packer Plus panniers, & Oveja Negra bikepacking bags // 5. Headwear: Double Darn 4-Panel Cotton cycling cap & Bontrager XXX WaveCel helmet // Plus: For navigation, nothing beats the Ride with GPS app (I never ride long-distance without it).
When did you feel happiest?
The same time that I felt the most terrified: when my children were born.
Who taught you your biggest life lesson, and what was it?
Life itself has taught me my biggest life lessons, and one of the most difficult to hew to is to live in the moment, to be truly present, with eyes, heart, mind, and spirit wide open. I’ve found this to be easiest when traveling, but it was my children who taught it to me, just by being their wonderful selves. And the biggest lesson I’ve taught my children—the one to remember above all others—is what a certain very famous and brilliant guy said a long time ago: treat others like you want to be treated—that is, well, with love and kindness and generosity and forgiveness.
You can teleport to any restaurant on earth: where do you go and what do you order?
I’ve been lucky enough to eat at some unbelievable restaurants over the years, many helmed by famous chefs, but I’m dying to go to Disfrutar, in Barcelona. Founded by three veterans of the Adrià brothers’ legendary (and now closed) El Bulli, Disfrutar is consistently ranked in the top ten worldwide. I’d order whatever the chef thinks I should, and I’d ideally go after watching FC Barcelona win a match at the Camp Nou.
Jeremy and his wolf-dog Smokey enjoying the snow at Timberline, Mt. Hood, Oregon
On assignment with WhereNext, meeting an Aztec dancer in Mexico City
Tell us about the most adventurous food you ever ate.
I’ve eaten ants and snails and mezcal worms, but I’d say the most adventurous was in Hong Kong, where I dined inside an immense, labyrinthine building beside a fisherman’s wharf and ordered the freshest seafood they had, which turned out to be an array of living creatures that were, um, dispatched at the table and served raw or cooked, depending on the local tradition.
Drink of choice?
Besides cool, clear mineral water? In order, it’s something like this: 1. A well-balanced IPA, like pFriem, out of Hood River, Oregon. 2. A Plymouth gin martini, up, a little dirty, three olives, and always, always stirred. (James Bond, while working, likes his drinks watered down; that’s why he stipulates shaken, not stirred.) 3. An all-natural, 100% agave añejo tequila like Herradura or mezcal like Milagrito, no salt or lime needed, ever. 4. A Ruddy Mary/Red Snapper, which is just a Bloody Mary with gin instead of vodka. It always tastes better.
Where do you feel most at home?
With my kids. That’s home.
Jeremy and his daughters on a trip to Mount Rainier National Park, in Washington state
On a family hike along the Salmon River, Oregon
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