Jürgen Knauss

Knauss was born in Darmstadt on 14 March 1938.^[1] He became a trained typesetter and studied graphics.^[2]

Knauss was married to the publisher Claudia Knauss.^[3] He died on 18 October 2024, at the age of 86.^[4]

At the beginning of his career, Knauss worked for a printing company in Brazil. After he met Friedrich W. Heye in 1964, he started working as a layout consultant for Heye Verlag. In 1971, Knauss met the founder of McDonald's Ray Kroc in Munich, which led to a 40 year long marketing partnership.^[5][6] Knauss became managing director of the advertising agency Heye & Partner in 1974. In 1984, he was appointed board member of Needham Worldwide (today DDB).^[2] After F.W. Heyes death in 1988, Knauss and his wife Claudia took over Heye Verlag in 1989.^[1]

In 2003, Knauss and his agency developed the McDonald's slogan i'm lovin' it (German Ich liebe es), which won a worldwide competition between 14 agencies; he is best known as the inventor of this slogan.^[7][8][9]

He resigned as CEO of the company in 2007 and served as chairman until 2014.^[10]

In 2014, Knauss founded the publishing house +Knauss Verlag with his wife Claudia; he appears in the publications as Yussof Knauss.^[11] In 2015 they opened the workspace +Knauss Werkraum in Munich.^[2][12][13] A part of his photographic work is shown in exhibitions.^[14]

• 1994: Man of the Year from Deutsche Werbeindustrie^[15]
• 2005: Hamburger Food Service Award^[16]
• 2007: Charlie Bell Award from McDonald's,^[17]
• 2016: Deutscher Fotobuchpreis Bronze (German photobook prize), for his photography book Burma/Myanmar – Im Fluss der Langsamkeit .^[18]
• 2018: Deutscher Fotobuchpreis Bronze (German photobook prize), for his photography book S.T.I.L.L.E.^[19]