Dan Levine photo copyright Rob Brizzell

I’ve worked in news media, publishing, entertainment and edTech, always keen to tell the story and create the sizzle for both B2C and B2B.

Currently I manage e-Commerce projects and provide a wide range of creative services.

Through early 2017 I was Senior Manager of Content Design & Production at Isabella Products in Concord, Mass, where I established new branding, designed a consumer-facing children’s eBook app and created the wireframe for a two million dollar NSF-funded collaborative writing platform. The latter was based on the idea that with a digital platform and affordable devices we could foster an environment where children write collaboratively as a way to improve writing skills, study skills, reading and expression. Many solutions exist to teach & measure children’s reading—far fewer exist to teach writing—virtually none in the digital space. Exciting concept isn’t it?

I arrived at Isabella Products the previous year when they acquired NY-based edTech publisher StarWalk Kids Media where I had been Head of Production/Art Director since 2012. At StarWalk Kids, I produced a 600+ eBook library including an extensive bilingual section in addition to German and U.K. editions at Amazon’s request. This was a wonderful opportunity to work with world-class children’s authors & illustrators whose titles I was re-designing and publishing in digital form for the first time. Truly important work with the mission to fill the gap between great books and young digital consumers in a quest to improve literacy. I also designed the proprietary StarWalk Kids Reader U/I.

Along with managing vendors and freelancers I also designed original titles including MALALA: Warrior with Words by Karen Leggett Abouraya and L.C. Wheatley. This title has sold 20,000 copies and won both the Eureka and QED awards. Not bad considering we were not a big-four imprint and had no budget for PR or marketing  for the book.

Before joining StarWalk I designed and produced campaigns for GE and other scientific marketing powerhouses at East House Creative in N.J. from 2011 to 2012

In the twelve years leading up to that I was Art Director at Razor & Tie/Kidz Bop in NYC, where I helped launch the well-known Kidz Bop brand as well as designing many of R&T’s more memorable products. My packaging graced many a top-selling product.

In the late ‘90s, prior to Kidz Bop, I was assistant to Art Director Kim Muller-Thym at the Jewish Week in their offices on Times Square. I was entrusted with designing the front color sections as well as general production and special editions. Kim is now a full time oil painter, showing in galleries in the northeast.

I arrived at the Jewish Week after an unforgettable internship (as they should be) at Art & Ink Enterprises in Hoboken. This was a lifestyle magazine company, concerned with Body Arts (Tattooing was illegal in NYC at the time) and outlaw motorcycle culture. Its publisher, the colorful Casey Exton (a.k.a. Harvey Shaprio, pronounced shah-pyro) had been an exec in Larry Flynt’s empire.