The fi ne art of style guide design The fi ne art of style guide design

C E L E B R A T I N G 1 0 Y E A R S • S P O N S O R E D S U P P L E M E N T
DECODING
DECODE’S DECADE
OF SUCCESS BY KATH STEWART
It all started in October, 1996 over dinner aboard the Jim
Henson Company’s charter yacht at MIPCOM. Steven
DeNure came over to Cannes as a consultant for his
time was right, Court and DeNure decided by the end of the
dinner to launch a new company. With the addition of partners
John Delmage and Beth Stevenson, Decode was launched in
former employers at Alliance Communications, where he had April of 1997.
been president of Alliance Productions. Angus Fletcher, then “Secretly, I think Neil just wanted to have his own boat,”
president of Jim Henson Production’s European arm, welcomed Fletcher says. Fletcher remains a close friend and coproducer,
DeNure on the company boat in exchange for what he joked having partnered on Decode’s biggest coproduction to date,
was “general washing up duties and sales of Duty Free.” UK- THE HOOBS.
based Neil Court was also on board acting as a consultant for Toronto’s Decode has since grown to not only have its
Henson, one of his key clients since he quit his stint as founding own chartered yacht in Cannes but to also mark its 10th
managing director of Nelvana Enterprises. DeNure and Court anniversary this year as a top international kids production
discovered that they had independently been hatching the same and distribution house. What makes this more impressive is
idea: to create a new production and distribution company the competition this newcomer faced in 1997. Companies such
that would be content, not volume, driven. Finding that they as Cinar, EM.TV and Nelvana were producing large volumes
shared a vision, had complementary skills, and believing the of kids product and making it very diffi cult for an upstart
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