Madeline Esper is a(n) 
artist, designer, creator, ceramicist,
that is currently teaching pottery and moving very soon.




Welcome to my product design portfolio !!!

Happy you made it. 

I’ll use caps here since this is a professional thing I had to obtain a degree to make.

This is a compilation of my product design, market strategy, and design research work.

Sydecar

Lead Product Designer 
2022–2024

As the first designer at Sydecar, I led core product development, built scalable systems, and designed brand and marketing assets while supporting the design needs of a rapidly growing fintech startup of 50+ people.


Design System & Brand GuidelinesWhen I initially joined Sydecar, their design system was fragmented and inconsistent. I rebuilt it from scratch, creating a unified set of components and tokens that could scale across product and marketing needs. I also updated the brand guidelines using their existing color palette and extended that to UI and print formats as well.



Deliverables included a Figma component library, a comprehensive art direction, UI design standards, all documented for engineers and future designers. Throughout the creation of the component library I prioritized progressive disclosure, clear error handling, and consistent design + engineering practices.




Core Product
 I led the design of Fund+, a tool that allows fund leads to consolidate multiple SPVs into a single committed fund structure. I collaborated with the engineering, operations, and finance teams to build this product from the ground up. This consisted of UX strategy, contextual + primary research, and visual design efforts.



Fund+ features a full dashboard for fund managers, a variety of capital call capabilities, and customizable investor terms. This project improved my ability to run 0-to-1 initiatives, to conduct user research with internal and external teams, and to deliver production-ready interfaces.

In addition to Fund+, I also maintained Sydecar’s core SPV tool, keeping the product functional and user-friendly for deal leads and the internal ops team. I worked on internal tools, where I would fix usability issues, and redesign legacy flows based on direct feedback from our internal finance and operations teams.


Information Architecture & NavigationOne of my most impactful projects was an audit and redesign of the platform’s information architecture. I interviewed users and mapped current workflows to uncover navigational friction. From there I restructured the product’s navigation to better support power users and new users alike- improving task discoverability and reducing cognitive load.


Marketing Assets
Beyond the product, I supported the marketing team by creating decks, product mockups, testimonial templates, and branded legal materials. I collaborated with stakeholders across Marketing, Product, and Legal to maintain a consistent brand identity and visual language.

These assets were used in both internal sales enablement and public campaigns helping build trust and clarity at every touchpoint.

I designed and launched a new version of the Sydecar website using Framer and Figma. The redesign prioritized mobile responsiveness and ease of content maintenance via CMS tools. I worked with the marketing team to streamline the storytelling of our product and highlight their monthly marketing content streams.
The site helped increase user acquisition and made it easier for the sales team to guide prospective customers through the products value.







Heyday

Market & Brand Strategy 
2021

Heyday was a brand accelerator that acquired and scaled digitally-native consumer products primarily through marketplaces like Amazon. As a Strategist, I conducted in-depth research on emerging brands to inform product positioning, visual identity, and audience targeting. My work consisted of producing research insights that helped shape rebranding strategies, refine packaging and messaging, and informing the greater company of brands existing strengths and weaknesses.


Tree of Life BeautyI performed a full brand audit and user research focused on Tree of Life Beauty’s Amazon presence. Key issues included inconsistent visual identity and limited educational content. I proposed a rebrand and content strategy aimed at younger, ingredient-conscious users. Alongside rebranding, I reccomended that ToF maintain it’s own website and renewed product IP as a holistic skincare brand. This work directly contributed to the brand’s expansion into CVS retail channels.





Cast EleganceWith Cast Elegance, I analyzed customer feedback on grill-stone usage and identified the most commonly cited customer issues. I mapped these painpoints and proposed redesigns in packaging, and customer instructions. The result was improved clarity, reduced negative reviews, and enhanced user satisfaction overall.




Lee BeautyFor Lee Beauty, a spa/skincare focused brand, I audited their product catalog and discovered widespread negative feedback regarding chemical application and safety of the then current product offerings. My recommendations included simplifying the comapnies offerings to focus on top-performing products that already had fewer cited safety risks, and redesigning packaging with clearer instructional visual safety cues. This repositioning boosted customer trust and improved marketplace visibility.




Strategy & CollaborationMy role at Heydey required conducting then documenting and translating research into actionable insights to inform and influence product and marketing decisions. I created structured reports, user personas, and stakeholder presentations regularly. I partnered with designers, product leads, and marketing teams to ensure all strategic work aligned with both user needs and business goals. Throughout, I worked in a fast-paced startup environment and contributed to foundational decisions within branding, outreach, and growth strategy.