Howie Kahn is a narrative creative director, overseeing brand storytelling from ideation to execution across all touchpoints, in all mediums.
As a multi-platform creative, strategic and editorial leader, Howie engineers and drives storytelling and worldbuilding journeys with vision and precision towards proven, measurable results.
Deliverables include, but are not limited to, video, audio, print, website, OOH advertising, social media, app, interactive global digital activations, experiential and live presentations.
Howie is a New York Times best-selling author, an award-winning journalist and an Emmy-nominated producer.
In launching It's Bagels, London's premier New York-style bagel brand, I have co-created, solidified and activated brand values and brand voice, inclusive of internal and external-facing comms, advertising and marketing, look and feel of all physical and digital assets, collaborations, content creation, culinary development, fundraising and growth strategy. We have 3 stores: Primrose Hill, Notting Hill, Soho.
Our 2-week activation with Coach and Selfridges occupied the Duke Street entrance of the iconic London Department store and featured a bespoke New York-inspired street scene with an original graphics package and custom builds.
Produced assets included: co-branded bagel cart and paper goods, phone booth, mail box, chess table, and newspaper dispenser, from which we distributed NYCarts, a limited edition zine with original photography, reporting and writing.
Coffee Carts of New York Field Guide 1
On April 2, 2025 Dan Martensen photographed coffee carts in New York City. Along with writer Howie Kahn, they began reporting on Montague and Clinton Street in Brooklyn, before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and admiring carts all the way to Astor Place. They visited 20 carts over their route of approximately three miles.
“What’s so interesting here,”
squawks the woman in the trench coat. She wears her hair shoulder length, the color of salt and pepper. Her eyeglasses are square with rounded edges. They reflect the Federal Court House building beside her like two tiny TVs broadcasting the title sequence of Law & Order.
She’s ordering her breakfast at her regular coffee cart and our reporting is disturbing her. Now she wants to argue. And now she wants to win.
As narrative creative director of NikeCraft, I lead an 18-month multimedia, multi-experience campaign expressing, upholding and evolving the values of artist Tom Sachs and his collaborative partner, Nike.
The cornerstone of the campaign is the I.S.R.U app, an original digital initiative and conceptual artwork geared toward growing a community and inviting its members to develop new rituals, skills and behaviors at the intersection of creativity and sport.
Through 3 separate sneaker launches, an apparel collection release, and the sale of a limited edition artwork, I.S.R.U meant developing comprehensive storylines while minding overall continuity, creating games and rules for a global audience, naming products, writing ads and movies, directing, producing, casting, and publishing across web, app, social and print.
Highlights from NikeCraft I.S.R.U follow.
WHAT IS I.S.R.U (Long Version)
I.S.R.U is a discipline. It means: use what you've got to create what you need. Devised by NASA to make space travel sustainable, the term stands for In Situation Resource Utilization.
There is no same-day delivery on Mars. Use what's around to generate breathable oxygen, drinkable water, and rocket fuel for the return trip home. Failure to activate resources means certain death.
Artist and NikeCraft founder, Tom Sachs applies the I.S.R.U philosophy to making sculpture. Artists have a different name for I.S.R.U. They call it bricolage. Existing materials become the basis for art. From his New York studio, Sachs hits the streets and scavenges for resources. A jar becomes a lamp. Plywood becomes a spaceship. Cardboard becomes a world.
"Use what you've got to make what you want," says Sachs. "Use your resources, not your phone."
Your phone won't solve your problems. Blue light is the destroyer of dreams. With every swipe, tap, and doom scroll your mind and body are at stake. Move away from the screen. Look elsewhere. Use yourself for something better. Touch clay. Move earth. Hold hands. Activity breaks addiction. Your body is the only device that matters.
nikecraft.com
The NikeCraft I.S.R.U app puts doing stuff first, connecting sport and art through daily ritual. Shoot 10 Free Throws. Run Out and Back. Read before Bed. Do a good push-up, not a junky push-up. Make a medicine ball. Tie Knots. Learn to take a photograph the right way. Be an artist, an athlete. Be like an astronaut.
"Use your imagination to become who you want to be."
I.S.R.U is available for free download in the app store. Sign up, do the activities, earn points and badges—a place in the community and on the Leader Board. You also may earn an opportunity to acquire NikeCraft shoes, apparel and other items. But I.S.R.U will never be about the stuff. Break your habit, find your ritual, change your life.
The app is your activity log and our communications platform. Open the app to log your work and check for new challenges and assignments, then lock your phone away. Take action.
Participation is a form of excellence.
Few brand exercises are more intimate and scrutinized than developing a voice.
Not "voice" for reading purposes, but voice in the audio sense; a direct sensory experience—a brand story that goes right to your ears.
In running my audio-first agency, FreeTime Media, I collaborated with visionary brands, organizations, and talent on all phases of podcast production: creating and evolving audio identity, casting and booking, show running and storytelling, and crafting content strategy to weave audio into paid and social channels.
Clients included: Nike, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, St. Regis Hotels and Resorts, Silversea Cruises, Skinfix, Dean & DeLuca and more. As founder and principal, I conceptualized, wrote, directed, produced and promoted hundreds of podcast episodes, reaching millions of listeners.
From concept development to on-sale date, each of my books has been a sustained collaborative effort, working with willing and initially unwilling subjects, genius editors, unflappable agents, and some of the top book designers in the field.
The resulting volumes have been best sellers, iconic commemorations and celebrations of culture, and deeper looks into the way art is made and crimes are solved.
The ongoing investigative nature of book writing, the measures taken to collect and present unforgettable details to an audience and the team mechanics required to produce resonant products have collectively shaped the way I approach working with brands.
After writing extensively about José Andrés for The Wall Street Journal, my reporting for print evolved into a film production role. José's work was too important to turn away from.
Chasing José and his World Central Kitchen teams around the world, revealed a story about a new model for disaster relief, and a new way to feed victims with dignity and hope in their greatest time of need.
Ultimately, the stories we gathered from a variety of impacted locations found their way to director Ron Howard, who invited my production team to join his in a collaborative effort to complete the film for National Geographic.
At the peak of print magazines and at the vanguard of digital journalism, I uncovered, reported, produced and wrote trailblazing, viral feature stories, from the streets of Detroit to the peaks of the Andes, from underwater restaurants to high above the stratosphere.
My subjects included the world's top athletes, greatest artists, and most innovative thinkers and doers, as well the people whose everyday work makes the world function, typically without their voices being heard.
Publications included: GQ, Wired, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Departures, Food & Wine, Saveur, Elle, Self, Glamour, Marie Claire, Town & Country, O: The Oprah Magazine, WSJ. The Wall Street Journal Magazine, WSJ, The Future of Everything, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Men's Journal, Esquire, British GQ, Mr. Porter, Details, ESPN'S Grantland, The New Yorker and more.
