DESIGN, ART DIRECTION, ETC.
WORK, ABOUT + CONTACT, HOME
ABOUT
Hi! I’m a NY-based art director and designer with a ton of experience in the world of
digital magazine publishing and editorial art. I love to draw, write, brand, format,
collage, conceptualize, and collaborate.
Here is my CV and this is my email: estherwerdiger@gmail.com
Well, for many years, I just made a lot of stuff. I compulsively drew comics, most of which ran on the now-defunct Awl and Hairpin sites, under the series name The League of Ordinary Ladies—the tote bags sold like hotcakes! I obsessively made my own music podcast for over 10 years, called Sounds Ace with Esther C. Werdiger. Although I did not yet understand the legalities of just playing entire songs I liked on a podcast (I now know it’s illegal), I had a great time doing it. One time I had my voice recognized at a Nike store in Midtown - one of the more exciting things to happen to me, for sure. I interned at WFMU in Jersey City and at the Portable Film Festival in Melbourne, a highlight of which was assembling a Nollywood film showcase. I dabbled in social media marketing in the early days of that blasted medium. I was an event planner and marketer for a Jewish singles organization on the Upper West Side (really hard to get men to come to events, I learned). I wrote music reviews for my friend Tuni’s zine. I illustrated posters for music shows in Melbourne—without realizing I should have been charging a fee for them (pay attention, kids). And then, when I was ready for a grown-up job, I found myself at Tablet Magazine, where I spent almost 11 years as Art Director. I cut my teeth there, big time, and discovered a deep love for editorial art—not just making it, but envisioning it, commissioning it, and working with incredible artists and agencies to shape striking design systems that help tell better stories. I’m now at Hearst Magazines, where I design for Oprah Daily, and it’s a blast. I’m a visual thinker through and through—and at heart, a scrappy creative. I love to learn, collaborate, spitball, brainstorm, talk ideas through, and then figure out how best to roll out the very thing I’m already seeing in my head. I move through the world taking in layouts, typography, that dumb print ad, that amazing vintage chalk box design, the wabi-sabi way my desk looks on a particular day, how those shoes look with those socks, and the totally unselfconscious beautiful junk my kids bring home from school. I love filtering and integrating all of it into my work—whether it's event branding, choosing a photographer for an assignment, creating a visual vocabulary for a new podcast, or designing a logo. It’s all around us!