Roger Westerman

Roger Westerman is the principal of Roger Westerman Design LLC (RWD). His practice focuses on the conceptualization and design of immersive and interactive museum exhibitions and experiences. He has expertise in all phases of the design process, including master planning, concept sketches, content research and writing, digitally produced renderings and control drawings, and project management. He founded RWD in 1999, after leaving ESI Design (1994–1999). He was a senior designer at Lebowitz/Gould/Design, specializing in environmental graphics and product design, from 1988–1993.

Major clients include institutions such as the Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, the National Archives, and the New-York Historical Society. Corporate clients include Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, HBO, and JPMorgan Chase. RWD has also created projects for non-profit organizations such as the Whole Health Institute, United States Pharmacopeia and the International Rescue Committee. The firm is known for an unusually strong breadth and diversity of clients and interests.

While at ESI Design, Mr. Westerman was the lead physical exhibit designer for eleven facilities of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Program and project designer of the American Family Immigration History Center at Ellis Island. Other projects at ESI Design included the Museum of the Old Barracks in Trenton and the Idea Factory at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Mr. Westerman has won numerous awards for exhibition design, including the 2013 Global Design Merit Award for Charles Dickens: The Key to Character from the Society for Experiential Graphic Design. He was senior designer for The Cleveland Avenue Time Machine, which won a 2008 THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement, and consulting physical designer for Darwin at the American Museum of Natural History, winner of a 2006 SEGD Merit Award, and AMNH’s Einstein, recipient of a 2003 SEGD Merit Award. In addition, Mr. Westerman is also a recognized product designer, having won the 2005 Interior Design Magazine Future Furniture Contest with his chair, the Corocker. He was awarded a U.S. design patent for the Corocker.

A native New Yorker, he was raised on the Upper West Side and educated at Collegiate School. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from Pratt Institute (with highest honors) and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College, where he majored in Latin and Greek literature.

Mr. Westerman has taught at Pratt Institute and the Fashion Institute of Technology. His work has been published in The New York Times; City Signs, Innovative Urban Graphics, by Gail Deibler; Interior Design, and How Magazine. He is a member of the Society for Experiential Graphic Design, the American Alliance of Museums, and the New England Museum Association. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.