Capitol Communicator is running “Up Close and Personal” profiles of communicators in the mid-Atlantic. In this profile we feature Woody Hinkle. Photography for the series is by Cade Martin, wardrobe styling by Pascale Lemaire and Sybil Street for THE Artist Agency; and hair and makeup by Patti D Nelson, Janice Kinigopoulos and Lori Pressman for THE Artist Agency.
Woody, please provide us a short bio.
I’m a copywriter and partner with my wife, Karen Nasuti, in Nasuti & Hinkle Creative Thinking, a brand development and creative agency that specializes in hotels and resorts. After college, I worked for a community newspaper, then stumbled into doing corporate PR. After a few years, I noticed that all the interesting people in my life were in advertising and design, so I got off at the next exit and started freelancing. We opened the agency a couple of years later.
What are the things you are most proud of?
Probably working as a mentor for the University of South Carolina CreateAthon. It’s a 24-hour crash event and teams of students produce work for non-profits. I’ve done it twice. The last time, our group won Best in Show and both times the team I worked with won a local Addy. It’s an incredibly gratifying thing to do, and I plan to do it as long as they’ll have me. I’m also proud of a pro-bono anti-cruelty campaign we did for the Washington Humane Society a few years ago. I’d like to think it helped.
Who are your personal role models?
Personal role models would have to be my father, my son and Karen’s father. I’m an older guy, so my professional heroes and role models are people like George Lois, Tom McElligott, Luke Sullivan, Ed McCabe and Nancy Rice. People who, I think, always pushed advertising creativity forward. And, of course, whoever it was who first used a real label maker to do a headline.
Did your role models offer professional advice that helped you in your career?
Not directly, but I have always tried to follow Luke Sullivan’s “simplicity” mantra. And I love the way George Lois describes the creative act as “the defeat of habit by originality.”
What professional advice do you have for others?
Find something you love and do it until it kills you.
What’s on your Spotify and Pandora playlists?
Little Feat, Dr. John, Bonerama, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Phoebe Snow.
What’s your favorite restaurant?
It’s a tie. The Tastee Diner in Bethesda and Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown.
Where did the name “Woody” come from?
My real name is Lawrence Woods Hinkle. My father’s name was Harry and my mother thought “Harry and Larry” sounded like a vaudeville team, so she decided to call me Woody. This was long before that unfortunate euphemism for an erection became popular.
Is there anything else you would like us to know about you?
I doubt it. You probably didn’t really want to know this much.
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