Dan Levine photo copyright Rob Brizzell

I’ve worked in news media, publishing, entertainment, edTech, and construction.

I work in the sign industry in New York City. I’ve managed wayfinding, advertising, civil, and private projects.

Previously, I was manager of content design & production at Isabella Products in Concord, MA. 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 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 when they acquired NY-based edTech publisher StarWalk Kids Media, where I had been Head of Production/Art Director since 2012. At StarWalk we produced a 600-title eBook library. The collection included an extensive multilingual section at Amazon’s request, for their Kindle platform. It was a wonderful opportunity to work with world-class children’s authors & illustrators whose titles I was re-packaging for their digital debut. This was important work with the mission to fill the gap between great books and young digital consumers in a quest to improve literacy. In addition to the I.P. of the catalog, I 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.

Before joining StarWalk, I produced campaigns for GE Life Science at East House Creative in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., We lived in Astoria at the time, which meant that I could commute by road bike*. It was an hour-long ride that included three rivers, three bridges, and two states; w/no gas, no tolls and no charge – take that, Elon.

In the twelve years leading up to that, I was Art Director at Razor & Tie/Kidz Bop in NYC. I helped launch the Kidz Bop brand and designed many of R&T’s as-seen-on-TV products.

In the late ‘90s, prior to Kidz Bop, I was an assistant to Art Director Kim Muller-Thym at the Jewish Week in their offices at 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 late Casey Exton (a.k.a. Harvey Shaprio, pronounced shah-pyro), had been an executive in Larry Flynt’s empire. We smoked cigarettes in the office and used paste-up boards. I’m grateful for the tutelage of editor Jean-Chris Miller and art director Marco Turelli.

*1993 yellow Olmo San Remo w/Shimano 105