What's your job?
I am a corporate writer/communicator. I team with graphic designers to provide companies with sales & marketing tools. I help my clients express their unique personalities, positioning statements, and business messages through the written word – websites, brochures, advertisements, newsletters; I even compose email for clients. The way that I explain my offering to prospective clients is: I am a marketing strategist with a core skill of fine writing.

What are your inspirations?
My inspiration for many years was Nike: “Just Do It.� Lately it is James Brown’s “Hit It and Quit It.�

What are you currently working on?
Communication challenges such as: One client was purchased by a behemoth financial firm and lost two important accounts all in the same week. Another launched an international business without a substantial network of international offices. Another sits in a vast pool of opportunity but is not reaching its target market. Savvy communications go far to address the everyday problems of running a business.

What do you like about what you do?
It’s very gratifying to spread the gospel—client by client—about the power of language. One of the best methods for sifting through bad writing is by reading text aloud. I love sitting with clients reading drafts, taking their edits and suggesting my own. It’s effective, even transformative, and it’s also a nice bonding experience between human beings. Like reading aloud was in elementary school.

I also like hearing the story. Because every company is a unique organism, it’s endlessly fascinating to hear the stories of companies and learn about the problem I am hired to solve. Like a shrink.

How do you balance your life between work and non-work? Or, what do you do in your spare time?
I am a museum hound living in a great museum town. I am enjoying a golden age of classical music in the Disney Hall. And I moonlight as a freelance dance critic for several daily papers. This gets me out on the town and allows me to write differently than in my day job.

What is your worst client experience?
(laughing) I would rather concede my clients’ worst experience of me: my endless drafts and edits.

What is the most valuable thing you learned in school (or your career)?
At high school in Pittsburgh I studied Mandarin Chinese. This led to working in Hong Kong and China in the 1980s and 90s. Nothing compares to the profound work ethic and frenzied work pace of Hong Kong. Internalizing both has served me well.

What are you currently listening to?
I’ve been listening to James Brown since he died last Christmas day. He has a motivational song from 1966 called “Don’t be a Dropout� advising young kids to not be like him, but stay in school and get a diploma. He had his audience’s ear and he didn’t abuse the privilege. I am very inspired by James Brown’s consistent high quality and his innovation within his genre. It’s also good for dancing! Other than JB, I am a Schubert-holic, I love Schubert’s magical music.

What are you currently reading?
I am re-reading Jane Eyre to keep up with my teenage niece in Boston—finding it pulpy and lurid. I am also reading an amazing Hungarian novel I found on the public library shelf called Be Faithful Until Death by Zsigmond Moricz.

What’s the strangest project you’ve ever done?
My second client was a laser hair removal salon. Enough said.

What product or gadget strikes your fancy?
My favorite gadgets are my brain and my instincts – I grapple with both daily and both require constant tech support.

If you could collaborate with another designer, another field of design or
another industry, what would it be and why?
Theater design, because my true calling in life was to be a choreographer.

How long have you been a member of the AIGA, why did you join and what do you get out of your membership?
I joined AIGA: 1) to meet and network with L.A.’s talented graphic designers with whom I collaborate and 2) to access TEIGIT health insurance through AIGA. Number one turned out well, number two not as well.

Do you have your own website?
Yes, I do. Please visit me at: http://debra.levineonline.com/

Are you currently looking for work or projects and why should a potential employer or client be interested in you?
What I do—when I do it well—enhances what designers do. Conversely my work is much enhanced by great design. The possibilities of collaboration seem to be endless. What I seek is the designer who cares as much for language as I do for design. That's it.

Do you have anything to add or information to share with other designers?
To get the job done right, encourage your clients to spend the dough on a writer. This should kick in the moment they say, “We’ll generate the copy in-house.�

Member Spotlight is an opportunity to showcase the diversity of our chapter's members. Promote yourself or a new project while sharing your experiences, interests and opinions with your local design community. Wanna be profiled next? Let us know.