Senior Designer – Color – Material Finishes – Cmf – Design – Footwear

Senior Designer – Color – Material Finishes – Cmf – Design – Footwear

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in design-related field or equivalent.
• 7+ years of experience creating color/material/textile programs and future vision in a retail/manufacturing environment.
• 1+ years of management experience preferred, including hiring, effectively directing work, coaching and development.
• Thorough knowledge of art and design with clear understanding of visual design or any design related environment.
• Ability to understand design conceptually across product categories.
• Ability to create designs that meet category needs and commercial opportunities.
• Proven experience creating and leading the execution of vision and strategy.
• Strong knowledge of the total footwear construction process.
• Ability to understand manufacturing capabilities, anticipate issues, problem solve, and timely resolution.
• Ability to build and foster relationships in a team environment.
• Ability to meet deadlines without fail.
• Ability to influence and collaborate with key business partners.
• Ability to be flexible and multitask many different projects at once.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, demonstrating effective listening through concise, clear verbal and written communication.
• Interest and ability to create unique solutions.
• Effective presentation comfort and skill.
• Demonstration of innovation and initiative—always looking at improving our products and processes while also displaying a willingness to dive into the details and support wherever necessary.
• Excellent interpersonal skills that inspire and build trust resulting in effective working relationships across the company (including Footwear Design, Development, Engineering, PLM, Run Research).
• Keen attention to detail in planning, organization, and execution of tasks, while still seeing the big picture and understanding how all the pieces fit together and affect one another.
• Ability to anticipate how a decision made can affect our customers, our partners, our products, or other department operations and/or morale; “connecting the dots.”
• An ability to understand and empathize with the runner.
• Mastery with Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop
• Competent using Apple Mac Operating system
• Proficiency with MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint etc.)

Responsibilities

• Be accountable to use and improve our Brooks Running performance-design ethos, discovering new ways to create beautiful, valuable, and deeply meaningful CMF designs.
• Research, prepare, and deliver concept direction to influence and support design direction with a focus on consumer storytelling, competitive landscape, product design, and CMF and graphic design.
• Own the creation of CMF designs and packages, and the creation of palettes, utilizing CMF renderings, visualizations ad tech-pack creations that meet project (pre-season, innovation, inline) objectives and further exploration, application, execution, and learnings.
• Partner with fellow design leads to support the evolution of overarching brand creative vision and seasonal design directions. Create new methods and tools that expand the possibilities of what and how we can create products.
• Drive strong collaboration with Footwear Design and Pre-Season Design teams on how CMF strategy, palettes, components, treatments, and designs can support leading products and seasonal stories.
• With Director, Color & Trend, help to strengthen and evolve design capabilities, tools, and integrations into footwear-design and CMF processes through ongoing feedback, strategic thought-partnership, and creative problem-solving.
• Finalize product details and proactively follow through on the execution of your designs with Development partners using your evaluation, judgement, and interpretation to select and communicate right courses of action.
• Develop templates and oversee all technical design documents needed, assigned, and agreed upon to ensure what we have designed matches what is produced.
• Respond to design critique with multiple design solutions, and use opportunities to influence others through key decisions, milestones, and timelines.
• Stay current in the athletic footwear market, different category trends, and product design innovations.
• Maintain and adhere to calendars and deadlines that result in a timely completion of projects—communicate to partners with ease and candor.
• Conduct factory and supplier visits to gain insights and maintain a deep understanding of the footwear manufacturing process.

Preferred Qualifications

• 3D design experience is not required, but a plus