72andSunny: Sunny Side Up

At LA shop 72andSunny, creative team Rob Teague and Cody Osborne use interesting working methods to produce campaigns that are bright and shiny enough to attract awards. Isobel Roberts learns about hat-sharing and one-upping.

Surfing in Bali and backcountry snowboarding; as first projects go for getting to know your new creative partner, they surely don’t get much better than that. And since creative duo Rob Teague and Cody Osborne first paired up on Nike’s epic, extreme sports-focused Chosen campaign almost two years ago, the duo have been going strong at agency 72andSunny in Los Angeles, lending their craft to clients including K-Swiss and Activision.

For California native Teague, the gig at 72andSunny was his first job out of college after a successful internship at the shop. Disillusioned with logo designs and brochure layouts after graduating with a more formal graphic design education, Teague turned to advertising for its scope and opportunity. “Advertising is really varied,” says the art director, “and it’s more about the ideas and the creative process as opposed to a really good-looking website navigation, which is important, but I think that the idea sits at the top of the pyramid and everything comes out underneath that and that’s the exciting part.”

Osborne on the other hand had embarked on a college course with ambitions to become a journalist, but after a change of heart he stumbled across an ad programme given by the school and decided to give it a go. “I took this class where they were showing us the old Miller High Life ads that Wieden + Kennedy did back in the day, and I thought I can’t believe people get to do this for a living. And here I am.”

Team players

After stints at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco and Seattle agency, Wexley School for Girls, Osborne made his way south to the City of Angels and it was off the back of a freelance project that the agency played matchmaker for him and Teague.

Osborne is technically the copywriting brain on the team, but in fact started out his agency life on the design side at Goodbys as an art director, and today the duo continue to share creative duties rather than divide the roles.

“We sit together and come up with the idea,” explains Osborne. “I’ll start on the script, he’ll start on the design and then we switch chairs, make notes, switch back again, and then just kind of go until we’re happy with everything. He’ll add something to the script while I’m comping somebody’s face on a photo. We co-exist well, specifically with me having the art direction background and Rob having a passion for writing.”

That sharing of hats is also something Teague and Osborne say is at the heart of the 72andSunny culture itself, with parts of the agency’s walls plastered with work in progress so that anyone in the office can offer suggestions to help collectively improve the output.

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