Esther Li on Problem Solving with Creativity

Esther Li is a New York based, Boston-bred, award-winning creative director, leading the creative team at Beardwood&Co.

Over the past 15 years, Esther has been specialising in branding identity design with a range of clients such as Etsy, Major League Soccer, Target, AICP, Chobani, Dunkin’, and UNICEF. Esther's expertise is rooted in her experiences at world-class agencies such as SYLVAIN, Jones Knowles Ritchie, and Collins.

She has been a featured speaker at AIGA NY, served as a jury member for Dieline and Print Awards, and been recognised by D&AD, ADC and The One Show, amongst others. In her spare time she is a hardcore basketball fan, and loves exploring the outdoors with her family.

Esther sat down with LBB to discuss her lifelong love of the arts, why creativity is her superpower, and protecting the fun, messy part of making.

Person

According to my parents, I've been creatively inclined since I was two. Instead of learning numbers like my Chinese grandmother wanted, I drew birds obsessively. By middle school, I was hooked on all of my art classes and anything tactile I could get my hands on. My parents pushed hard for engineering, but art school won out in the end.

That's when I realised graphic design was just problem solving with creativity, which completely clicked for me. It brought together both sides of my brain: the logical, rational side that got drilled into me through all those extra math classes, and the expressive, intuitive side that just wanted to make beautiful things.

I would say that I'm pretty Type A. I love planning, organising, being proactive, and having a backup plan. I'm good at finding compromises between people, and making sure everyone's on the same page.

At first glance, that might seem at odds with being creative, but honestly, it's my superpower and what makes me a good creative leader. I can plan and structure things for my teams while also protecting the fun, messy part of making. I get to hold both: the strategy and the spark.

Personality-wise, I'm somewhere in between introverted and extroverted. I love being around people, hanging with friends, and the energy of collaboration. But it also drains me pretty quickly. I need alone time to reset and recharge. It's less about being shy, and more about how I refuel. Give me a night in and I'm ready to go again.

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Product

I place a high emphasis on craft. It's hard to ignore. Is the execution pixel-perfect? Are the details thoughtful? Colour, type, layout, the whole system: does it all feel intentional, and considered?

Then, I try to pull back and not be distracted by the shiny pictures. Does the work surprise me? Is it something unexpected in the best way? Compelling creative shows me something I haven't seen before, or takes a familiar thing and flips it in a way I'd never think of. That's the stuff that disrupts categories and influences cultural trends for years to come. It takes bravery to make work that's genuinely different, but when it's backed by solid strategy and a real understanding of the brand and culture, you can see the thinking behind the risk.

There is a mental checklist you need to run through with every project; it needs to be conceptual, strategic, and emotionally fixating – that's how you create timeless work. Work that just chases whatever's trending right now? It all blurs together.

A project of mine that I'm proud of is a brand identity for Major League Soccer (MLS) Next Pro, a development league within the league itself. What made it exciting was that the final identity was nowhere near what I imagined at the start. It wanted to celebrate player development without making it feel like a relegation league. We ended up building a custom logotype that became a whole typeface designed around growth and movement. Some letters are awkward, a little off, but that's the point. That's what growing and learning actually looks like.

Process

I need to understand the problem – whether it’s business, creative, or cultural – before I can solve it. I dig into the brief, get to know the client and its team, and figure out what's challenging for them in their roles day by day. That context is everything for me.

Once I have that foundation, I let myself get lost for a bit. There's always this moment of ’Wait, do I actually know how to do this?’, and instead of panicking and rushing to an answer, I've learned to embrace that feeling of the unknown and trust myself and the team around me. Building and surrounding yourself with the right team of people with diverse backgrounds, levels, superpowers, and distinctive points of view will lead to an explosion of ideas that breakthrough and resonate with an audience.

This continual balance of what is known and what is yet to be discovered is what ultimately leads to the most unexpected and fresh creative solutions.

Press

I've been really lucky with the opportunities I've had throughout my career, especially getting to work alongside some incredibly talented people. While finishing my degree at Pratt, I interned at Mother Design, Sagmeister & Walsh, and Ro&Co. Testing out different places with different scales, specialties, and types of work helped me figure out the kind of creative I wanted to be.

Since graduating, I've worked at Collins, JKR, and Sylvain. They all work to solve creative challenges for a range of clients, from startups to national and global brands. I learned something at every job that's shaped me into the leader and creative I am today. Each experience was different in a lot of ways – the role of strategy, the cross-disciplinary process between account, strategy and design, the approach to storytelling.

At every stop, I've met and worked with all kinds of people with different approaches, processes, and philosophies. I genuinely believe you should always learn from everyone around you, the good and the bad. That's what makes you into the kind of leader only you can be.

But when I think about what makes or breaks a project, people are the biggest factor. When you have a great team across all disciplines, the collision of different minds and strengths can be incredible. But when you don't have the right experts in place, it can feel like you're walking uphill through mud just to survive each day. No one wants to experience that while doing a job that is supposed to be fun!