about

Del­e­vante is a full-service cre­ative shop that spe­cial­izes in all dis­ci­plines of adver­tis­ing and design with an empha­sis on strate­gic development, creative con­cept­ing and brand res­o­nance — belief in the impor­tance of authen­tic­ity in an increas­ingly sen­si­tive con­sumer marketplace.

Mike Del­e­vante
Cre­ative Director

Fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful music career and exten­sive his­tory design­ing for national brands, Mike Del­e­vante founded Del­e­vante, draw­ing upon his wealth of expe­ri­ence to cre­ate and direct design for local and national clients. Mike has worked with an impres­sive list of well-known busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions, serv­ing as Designer at the School of Visual Arts, Asso­ciate Art Direc­tor at National Lam­poon, Art Direc­tor of the Mag­a­zine Divi­sion at ABC, Designer and Art Direc­tor of Adver­tis­ing at J.Crew, and Part­ner and Cre­ative Direc­tor at RD&Q in Nashville. He has also acted as a free­lance consultant/designer to Time Mag­a­zine, Rolling Stone, Sotheby’s New York, and J.Crew.

Mike’s deci­sive and ele­gant web and print design style has been nation­ally rec­og­nized, earn­ing Print, Art Director’s Club, Pub­li­ca­tion Design, and Addy Awards, as well as recog­ni­tion from the School Art League NYC, and Macro­me­dia Flash Site of the Day.

Also an accom­plished musi­cian, Mike has col­lab­o­rated with his brother to record two albums on Rounder and Capi­tol Records as the Del­e­vantes, and has toured the United States and Europe with Emmy­lou Har­ris, Steve Earle, John Prine, and oth­ers. The Del­e­vantes achieved four #1 sin­gles dur­ing their musi­cal career, as well as the #1 Video spot on CMT Europe. Their suc­cess has been fea­tured in Rolling Stone, Enter­tain­ment Weekly, and USA Today.

Suzanne Nahay
Account Services/Copywriter

Suzanne brings to Del­e­vante her expe­ri­ence as a pub­lic rela­tions account man­ager, writer and strate­gist at two of the Southeast’s most rep­utable firms, McNeely Pig­ott & Fox and Seigen­thaler Pub­lic Relations.

She has cre­ated and man­aged PR and mar­ket­ing pro­grams, dri­ven brand iden­tity engage­ments and over­seen client ser­vices, bud­gets, cal­en­dars and report­ing for clients in a vari­ety of sec­tors includ­ing gov­ern­ment, retail, health­care, arts and enter­tain­ment, envi­ron­men­tal and nonprofit.

Cam­paign high­lights include the National Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Green­ing of the Oscars and national ‘reduce your car­bon foot­print’ media blitz, the Nashville Opera Raise Your Glasses cap­i­tal cam­paign, com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tions and recruit­ment pro­grams for the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor/Job Corps and a vari­ety of suc­cess­ful pro­grams for Purity Dairies, Room In The Inn, This­tle Farms, Cheek­wood and Jack FM.

Since join­ing Del­e­vante in early 2010, Suzanne has engaged as brand strate­gist, client ser­vices man­ager and copy­writer. Her tal­ent for cre­ative con­tent devel­op­ment is bol­stered by years of study in com­po­si­tion and rhetoric, cre­ative writ­ing and journalism.

Suzanne received a B.A. from the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee, an M.A. from Bel­mont Uni­ver­sity and com­pleted Ph.D. stud­ies at Geor­gia State University.

 

Austin Gray
Graphic Designer

After col­lab­o­rat­ing with Mike Del­e­vante at RD&Q in Nashville, Austin went on to become the senior graphic designer at Del­e­vante in 2005. Austin’s ver­sa­tile design and illus­tra­tion skills have cre­ated suc­cess­ful and award-winning cam­paigns for clients such as Catholic Exten­sion Soci­ety, Cheek­wood, Vil­lage Real Estate, Core Devel­op­ment and Bel­court Theatre.

Most recently, the firm has received a Gold ADDY Award for his con­tri­bu­tion to the Burger Up brand and for Cheekwood’s Once Upon a Gar­den cam­paign, for which he cre­ated a series of orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions dis­played across mul­ti­ple medi­ums includ­ing posters, brochures, invi­ta­tions and billboards.

Prior to RD&Q, Austin worked at the leg­endary Hatch Show Print in Nashville, one of the old­est work­ing let­ter­press print shops in Amer­ica. Hatch prints have fea­tured a host of artists and per­form­ers from every genre since the early 1900s. He is a Cum Laude grad­u­ate of Fort Hays State Uni­ver­sity in Hays, Kansas.