Foster is another person where I feel like I’ll probably someday be saying ‘I knew him when,’ and I might already be saying that now. Several years ago, I posted about his blog, and he emailed to say thanks. We kept in touch, and eventually profiled him for a project on interns. Then he started a couple of really awesome blogs, got a book deal, and ditched his job in NYC to live the dream and travel the country in a van that is only occasionally parked down by the river.

Employee of the Month profiles are an idea that I implemented when I started working on the UO blog. There are so many insanely talented people at Urban Outfitters—lots of people who kick-ass at their day job and then go home to work on equally as intense personal projects.  The features purposefully focus on what people  do outside of work to help give them some shine. Anouck is definitely one of the best of the bunch. (FYI, I produced and edited this feature, but the actual interview was done by someone else.)

I got to know Jeff Luker because he would always submit photos to the Urban Outfitters Flickr pool, and then send nice little emails whenever his work  was in a show or a zine. Eventually, we asked him to do a shoot for us. We sent him a couple of boxes of clothes, and that was it—no direction, no models, no stylists. It’s always a risk when you do this, but Jeff’s shoot (here) went above and beyond our expectations, and perfectly captured the vibe of UO. And, FYI, he’s now shooting Levi’s campaigns. NBD. We knew him when.