As alumni of the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Joseph Nanni and Larry Ioannou discovered a special kinship when their career paths crossed at Harrod and Mirlin fcb four years ago. They have been a creative team since, and their combined efforts have earned them places as top-spotters.

Having worked extensively on the Levis and Christie Brown and Company accounts, Nanni and Ioannou have developed a reputation as an effective creative duo. Although they did not attend college together, their collective advertising education from oca made for a natural combo once they had both arrived at Harrod and Mirlin.

‘Because we had both come from [oca] we both knew how to work really well together,’ said Nanni, the team’s copywriter. ‘There is no real art direction or writing program, so you just kind of take the ad classes and whatever end you are better at you go with. Larry was much more into the visual and I was more into the writing aspect of it.’

Although each specializes in one aspect of their partnership, they are both adamant that neither one dominates their creative relationship.

‘A good team is one that can honestly share ideas and not really own something,’ says art director Ioannou. ‘A good example is if I come up with a headline, it really doesn’t matter because it is the team’s work. Or if Joseph has a great idea for a photo, then so be it. It is the team’s work and you’re acting as one with shared responsibilities.’

Nanni agrees that ownership of a particular part of a campaign can hinder a creative relationship. He has seen a certain ‘cattiness’ develop in partnerships where there were ownership issues.

‘We just kind of blur the lines, and it’s good that way for the work too,’ he says.

Nanni appreciates the shared responsibility approach that he and Ioannou take to their work.

‘I have worked with other art directors in the past and it’s kind of like isolation,’ he says. ‘The writer goes away, the writer does his thing, brings it to the art director and then they come up with what you’re going to look at together. I hate working like that.’

With Nanni and Ioannou, every detail of the process is tackled as a unit. Their `everyone has a say in everything no matter what their specialty’ attitude bleeds over onto the set when production on a spot begins.

‘You’re going from a team of two to a team of 20 or 30, and everyone on set has plans,’ says Nanni. ‘Mostly what we try to do is find people who get the idea, and once they get the gist of it, we just leave it open. No idea is a bad idea, and anyone that wants to suggest anything goes right ahead.’

When choosing a crew for a shoot, Ioannou looks for personalities who will work well together. ‘In my experience, personality makes a great idea work,’ he says.

The two are justifiably proud of their achievements, most recently their work on the Levi’s ‘Blueprint’ campaign. On the two Levi’s commercials they worked with director Richard D’Alessio, who Ioannou describes as a grown-up kid.

The first spot, ‘Blueprint for Hip-Hop,’ zooms in on a ’70s-type house party, with kids dancing in their jeans. One bumps into a record player, scratching the record, thus giving birth to the earliest hip-hop sounds. The second ad, ‘Blueprint for Recycling,’ involves a shot of a vintage clothing store decades ago, and as the times change, so does the style of the Levi’s jeans in the window.

‘The actual shoot days were like a party,’ Ioannou says. ‘It was completely fun and we’re proud of that, because we think it came through in the final ads.’