Senior Designer, Packaging & Branding

Position Overview :

Title: Senior Designer, Packaging & Branding

Location: New York, NY (open to remote)

Reports to: Vice President, Creative Director

Type: Contract-to-Hire; full-time (Hybrid)

Compensation: Negotiable (based on experience)

We are seeking a senior designer who lives for concept, craft, and range. You will define visual territories, create brand and packaging systems that sell, and shift effortlessly between aesthetics, from luxury minimal to bold mass, vintage apothecary to Gen Z pop. You will own the creative bar, drive concept through sell-in, and partner with production teams to ensure what you design is buildable and beautiful.

Key Responsibilities :

Design and Brand Systems

• Lead concepting and design for fragrance collections and brand systems across SKUs, sizes and substrates.
• Build distinct visual territories: color palette, typography, finishes, pattern/illustration, iconography, and layout rules.
• Show stylistic range -- luxury, masstige, mass, clean/clinical, vintage apothecary, Y2K/Gen Z, gender-neutral, holiday/gifting, collab/celebrity.
• Translate trends and cultural signals into commercially strong, retailer-ready designs with clear hierarchy and shop ability.
• Create on-pack architecture (brand, line, variant, claims, regulatory) that balances beauty with clarity.
• Design comps and mockups that sell the story: on-pack, secondary, merchandising, e-comm thumbnails, PDP, and simple POS.
• Build style guides and toolkits that scale -- logo usage, type systems, color logic, finishes, and layout patterns.
• Use finishes and materials as part of the design language (foil, emboss/deboss, soft-touch, textures) with an eye on cost tiers.

Exploration, Presentation, and Iteration

• Run fast exploration: mood boards, type studies, palette/finish options, A/B shelf and thumbnail tests.
• Present crisp rationale tied to consumer, retailer, and price tier; iterate quickly based on feedback without losing craft.
• Conduct competitive teardowns and trend maps to position collections distinctly.
• Design in-store merchandising displays per retailer and brand requirements.

Leadership and Oversight

• Mentor mid/junior designers-- critique, craft coaching, and raising typographic and systems rigor.
• Partner with Product Development, Compliance and Creative to ensure manufacturability; guide mechanical build and color targets without owning day-to-day production.
• Set quality standards: checklists, naming, file hygiene, and handoff expectations; approve key proofs and, when needed, attend press for creative intent.

Qualifications :

• 5-10+ years in packaging and brand design (CPG/beauty/fragrance or adjacent) with mass/private label experience.
• Elite visual craft: typography, composition, hierarchy, and color systems; portfolio shows breadth across aesthetics and depth of refinement.
• Proven ability to originate brand worlds and translate them into scalable on-pack systems.
• Strong presentation and storytelling; can defend choices with consumer and commercial logic.
• Comfortable collaborating across Creative, Product, Packaging, Engineering, and Vendors; clear, concise communicator.
• Working knowledge of print/production to design responsibility.

Education:

• Bachelor's in Graphic Design, Packaging Design, or related; or equivalent experience.

Application Requirements:

• Portfolio with case studies showing: multiple aesthetic styles executed at a high level, concept-to-system translation and on-pack hierarchy, before/after or option paths with rationale, realistic mockups (3D or photographic comps).

Tools:

• Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign (expert).
• Figma or Keynote/PowerPoint for guidelines and sell-in.
• 3D familiarity (Key Shot, Blender, Cinema 4D, or Adobe Substance/Dimension) for believable mockups a plus.

Company Overview :

Founded in 1969 and operating out of Willowbrook, IL and New York City, Tru Fragrance & Beauty is a portfolio company of Monogram Capital Partners, which acquired a majority stake in the company in 2024.

In addition to the company’s branded portfolio – namely Le Monde Gourmand, Lake & Skye, Supersuite, Leather Vintage Label and Yellowstone – Tru also develops fragrance brands exclusively for retail partners.

Tru maintains a premier position as a multidisciplinary innovation engine and supplier, with a roster of A-list celebrity and retail partners that include ULTA, Nordstrom, Blue Mercury, AEO, Target, TJ Maxx, and UO, among many others.