The designer who reads the room before the brief
From a studio in Jerusalem, Miriam Adler builds campaign identities for American Jewish organizations that raise more — because they finally look like the people they're asking.
Photo: Miriam Adler at work in the Ateret studio, reviewing campaign proofs for a US day-school client. Real photography lands here.
Miriam Adler will tell you that the logo is the last thing she thinks about. Before Ateret Creative designs a single pixel, she wants to know how a community talks about itself — what its people are proud of, what they're quietly worried about, what makes a board member lean forward at the dinner. Only then does the identity come.
That instinct is why her studio, based in Jerusalem but working remotely with US organizations, has become a quiet fixture inside American Jewish philanthropy. Ateret builds brand systems, annual-campaign creative, matching-day microsites, donor mailers, and full rebrands — but the through-line is never the deliverable. It's whether the campaign feels like us.
"Miriam understood our community before she designed a single pixel. The brand felt like us — and it raised more than any year before."
Rabbi David Cohen
Executive Director
Beth Shalom Academy · Chicago, IL
The work that gets remembered
Take Beth Shalom Academy. The Chicago day school came to Ateret for an annual-campaign rebrand and a $2M matching microsite. The refreshed identity and the campaign site did more than look sharp — the school raised 38% more than the prior year, its best campaign on record.
Or the Federation Giving Tuesday toolkit: a templated social-and-email kit Ateret designed to be handed down, not held. Twenty partner organizations adopted it — one studio's work multiplying quietly across a network that would never have hired twenty designers.
Why clients keep coming back
The pattern in her endorsements is consistency of judgment. Development directors describe strategy that survives contact with a real inbox; the design turns a fundraising plan into something a donor actually wants to open. Eleven times, an organization in this community has hired her on another's word — and six have put their name in this Guide.
"She turns a fundraising strategy into something people actually want to open."
Sarah Feldman, Director of Development
Hillel International · works remotely
The work: National annual-campaign creative and donor communications, delivered remotely across chapters.
"Jewish organizations deserve design as serious as their mission."
Why did you start Ateret?
"I started Ateret because Jewish organizations deserve design as serious as their mission. For a long time that wasn't a given — the cause was serious, the materials were an afterthought."
Your favorite kind of project?
"My favorite projects are the ones where the campaign becomes something the whole community feels proud to share. When a board member forwards the microsite to their kids — that's the moment. That's when I know the design did its job."
Auto-transcribed from Miriam's recorded voice note · lightly edited for length · the story layer, in her own voice.