our lifestyle associates

Lifestyle is Robin Avni’s business: She understands corporations, she gets and analyzes consumer needs, and she is a respected team leader. As a visionary who keeps tabs on current consumer needs, she has surrounded herself with talented lifestyle experts who collaborate to deliver insights, trend analysis, research and content development. As a former lifestyle writer and creative director and now a market strategist, she comes at projects from all sides. Robin has helped a variety of Fortune 1000 companies, national advertising agencies and award-winning media properties apply timely insights and implications to key lifestyle categories. She never loses sight of The Big Picture as she executes down to the details.

Molly Martin has an editor’s eye for detail and a foreman’s sense of delivery. She has never met a schedule she couldn’t manage or a deadline she couldn’t meet. Calm, organized and creative, Molly brings multifaceted wisdom to multimedia and multiple platforms. Molly’s famous to-do lists — gentle but insistent whether for the CEO or the intern — ensure that all aspects of content get covered and that projects are not only complete but on time and on budget.

An award-winning writer, editor and project manager, Molly has helped shape content for websites, newspapers, magazines, books, film, video and digital film. She wrote the popular and nationally distributed column “On Fitness” for The Seattle Times, was assistant editor for the newspaper’s Sunday magazine, has written extensively on culture and travel from around the world, and is author of a dozen children’s books on professional sports. She has been a guest speaker at many sports and cultural events.

Kat Spellman keeps her heart warm and her head cool, even when she’s all a-Twitter, using social and traditional media to communicate who — or what — leads the lifestyle marketplace. With her remarkable insight and energy, she’s helped some of the nation’s leading companies and the Northwest’s top entrepreneurs build brands and create buzz. Kat recently launched and branded a new gastropub concept, Spur, and took it from idea to both Food & Wine’s coveted Go List and Condé Nast Traveler’s Hot List — in just one year.

When she’s not being tapped by editors or writers for sources in the know around food and beverage, fashion, spa and retail, Kat is a passionate foodie who enjoys gardening, entertaining and home renovation. Kat is formally trained as a writer, with an English degree from Seattle University. The Spellman Company’s clients have included REI, California Pizza Kitchen, Mrs. Cook’s, Salish Lodge & Spa and Noah’s New York Bagels. Building buzz was a two-way street back in her caffeine-driven days of doing PR for Starbucks. As she helped the company rapidly launch 500 stores, she developed her lifestyle category specialty in double-tall order.

DEBRA PRINZING

Debra Prinzing observes, considers, inquires and listens — interpreting how humans interact with their built environment and nature. A longtime journalist, Debra is the author of five books, including the award-winning “Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways: Big Ideas for Small Backyard Destinations” (Clarkson Potter/Publishers) and The Shed Style blog. She credits her success in writing and speaking about gardens and home design to a happy hybrid of educational pursuits: Textiles, Fashion, Communication and Horticultural Studies.

Debra is a regular contributor to L.A. At Home, the daily design blog of the Los Angeles Times. Her feature stories also appear in print for the Los Angeles Times’ Home section and top shelter and consumer publications, including Garden Design, Fine Gardening, Cottages & Bungalows, Metropolitan Home, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, Alaska Airlines Magazine, Seattle Homes & Lifestyles and Romantic Homes, among others. She lectures on design topics to botanical garden, horticultural society and flower-show audiences, and is a regular radio guest.

CELESTE TELL

Celeste knows the building industry inside and out and is passionate about creative approaches to sustainable living and green building. She is a master at helping clients manage far-reaching and all-encompassing projects, using research to craft compelling stories that can drive new initiatives and weave them seamlessly into existing brands. In addition to her work with Lifestyle Insights, she is managing partner for Fair Building Technology, an architectural and construction management consultancy.

Celeste has a Masters in Design (Strategic Design Planning) from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, a BA in Interior Design from Michigan State University, and is a graduate of Seattle’s Leadership Tomorrow, a civic leadership program of community leaders dedicated to creating a better future. She has managed award-winning projects involving integrated design disciplines including research, marketing, visual, product and interior design; architecture, engineering and planning; and applied her talents to fields as diverse as workplace design strategies, home furnishings and consumer-focused healthcare. In her “spare time” Celeste is a serial remodeler, who has remodeled four homes including three kitchens (so far!). Just don’t ask her to garden.

JANNA LUFKIN

Growing up amongst Idaho farmers and ranchers, Janna developed an eye for pure beauty and simple, well-loved objects. She loves to share her keen eye for design and display, breaking the process into simple steps that help others transform their space or projects with relative ease. For Janna, the road to grace and beauty begins with organization, which is her passion. She regularly produces and styles stories involving home, craft and design for national magazines, including Better Homes & Gardens, Sunset, Before and After, and Do It Yourself, where she happily answers the question: “How did you do that?”

Janna’s creative work has also appeared in Natural Home, Home Companion, Women’s Day and House Beautiful. Serving as photo stylist, interior designer, graphic designer or art director, she has applied her organized approach and keen aesthetic to such companies as Eddie Bauer, Orvis, Amazon, Helly Hansen and Nordstrom.

JEAN GALTON

A food writer, recipe developer and food stylist, Jean Galton brings out the best in all foods, from updated comfort to haute cuisine to calorie conscious. In addition to numerous books, Jean’s work has appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Parents, Good Housekeeping, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Weight Watchers Magazine and Real Simple. A former corporate chef and cooking teacher, Jean connects with all levels of food lovers, who universally fall for her exciting fresh flavors, satisfying aesthetic appeal and the lively and meaningful context of her writing.

Jean’s ability to create new recipes to suit almost every need gives her a broad corporate portfolio. She has developed recipes for companies ranging from Starbucks and Nestlé’s Toll House to the California Table Grape Commission, and styled for companies as diverse as Trident Fish, Cascadian Farms and Chateau St. Michelle. She is the author, co-author or contributor to many books, including “Pacific Northwest” (Williams-Sonoma), “Italian Grilling”, “Cooking with Artisan Breads” and “365 Great Soups & Stews”.

KAVITA VARMA-WHITE

Kavita has spent most of her working career researching and writing about her passions — first as a hip single magazine journalist covering the nightlife scene in Miami and then, well, as a mommy/lifestyle writer and editor. As her greatest passions sail through grade school at ages 10 and 7, Kavita can now focus on another universal challenge — trying to be equal parts mother, spouse, active athlete and professional. These days Kavita is Seattle editor for Red Tricycle, an online parenting magazine, and writes on health for MSNBC.com. She honed an interest in popular culture, fitness and family first as a features writer at the Wilmington News-Journal and then as assistant features editor for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. She has a B.A. in English from Oberlin College and an M.S. from Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism.

Kavita has turned “adjusting” into a science. She loves to cook and entertain, for example, but now does it family style. The kids eat first and then play while the adults converse and dine in peace. They all get back together for board games or to dance. The ultimate goal: “For everyone, whether 6 or 46, to have fun and leave happy.”

SHERRY STRIPLING

Storyteller Sherry Stripling writes with a clear, accessible voice that invites people in to its warmth. Her thoughtfulness bridges the “what” and the “why,” helping readers understand meaning and motivation along with a crisp explanation of details. After a long newspaper career, first in sports, then in lifestyle and travel, she has written for websites and newsletters ranging from retail travel to financial management to nutrition, fitness and lifestyle. Whether for profiles, first-person accounts for clients, blogs, or how to do it yourself, Sherry’s voice balances authenticity with a natural upturn that makes people feel better about themselves and their lives.

Sherry’s profiles have appeared in The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Self Magazine, Catholic Digest and The Seattle Times. She was honored twice with the Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing. Her most recent projects include writing documentary scripts, strategy papers and corporate blueprints, and teaching classes in creative nonfiction and web-content writing.

ANGIE NORWOOD BROWNE

The texture, depth and grace of Angie Norwood Browne’s award-winning photography have appeared in cookbooks, magazines and advertising campaigns around the world. Her sixth sense for beautiful lighting and composition blends with her training from the Brooks Institute of Photography to create images that have shaped the marketing campaigns and packaging for some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Credit Angie’s full-out passion for food to her Southern roots, and her subtle refinement to the fusion food of her adopted Pacific Northwest. Angie’s passions don’t stop there: Many of the herbs, greens and vegetables that appear in her photos come from her own garden.

Angie’s clients have included Starbucks, General Mills, Campbell’s Soup, Trident Seafoods, Costco and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Her editorial work includes Seattle Metropolitan Magazine and Seattle Metropolitan Bride and Groom Magazine. Her work has also been featured in New Zealand Gardener and The New York Times food section. Among numerous cookbooks: Kathy Casey’s delicious cocktail recipes “Sips and Apps” (Chronicle Books); “Celebrate the Rain: Cooking with the Fresh & Abundant Flavors of the Pacific Northwest” (The Junior League of Seattle); and the “Café Flora Cookbook” (The Penguin Group).

VALERIE GRIFFITH

Valerie Griffith travels the world for documentary video production. Wherever she goes, awards for her productions soon follow, including the American Public Television award for Excellence in Programming and a nomination for a National Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Series. Val understands the power of video imagery. Thoughtful and detail-oriented, she is dedicated to making the pieces fit together in the right way, producing soulful and beautiful video that expands understanding or influences emotion.

Val has been the Series Producer on 26 half-hour episodes of Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge, which was produced for public television and is watched by more than a million viewers each week. She co-produced Rick Steve’s European Christmas, an hour-long PBS pledge special, and numerous episodes for WGBH Boston’s critically acclaimed PBS children’s series, Postcards from Buster and ZOOM. Currently Val is working on a pro-bono promotional documentary for Project Peanut Butter, a nonprofit organization that feeds severely malnourished children in Africa.

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