Senior Surface Design Manager (Apex)

Title: Senior Surface Design Manager

Location: Hybrid with Weekly In Office Meetings (Apex, NC). Must be in the Raleigh Durham area.

Department: Design

About Mary Square

Mary Square is a women-owned lifestyle and apparel brand inspiring women to live their yes. We offer apparel, statement jewelry, and meaningful gifts designed to uplift and connect. With bold original artwork and a passion for quality, we proudly serve over 4,000 boutiques across the U.S. 

Position Overview

Mary Square is seeking an experienced and highly creative Senior Surface Design Manager to lead the development of original prints, patterns, artwork, and surface design across our apparel and lifestyle collections. Print and pattern are central to the Mary Square brand. This role will help establish and evolve a distinctive, ownable visual point of view that feels fresh, feminine, joyful, and unmistakably Mary Square.

The ideal candidate is both a hands-on artist and an experienced design leader, someone who can create exceptional original artwork while mentoring younger designers, elevating the quality of the team’s work, and building a thoughtful and commercially relevant print assortment. This position requires deep experience in textile and surface design, print and pattern development, color, seasonal trends, and production-ready artwork.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead seasonal print, pattern, color, and surface-design development across Apparel and Gift.
• Create original artwork through hand painting, drawing, digital illustration, and other relevant techniques.
• Develop seamless repeats, border prints, engineered layouts, placement artwork, embroidery concepts, and alternate colorways.
• Research emerging trends in print, color, art, interiors, fashion, and culture while filtering them through the Mary Square customer and brand identity.
• Build seasonal print inspiration, color direction, artwork concepts, and print-development presentations for all Mary Square brands.
• Ownership of ensuring approvals are met for on time development throughout the season.
• Translate seasonal concepts and trends into cohesive, customer-focused print stories.
• Build a balanced assortment of statement prints, florals, geometrics, conversational prints, stripes, plaids, and supporting patterns.
• Prepare accurate, production-ready artwork with clear repeat, scale, placement, technique, and color information.
• Review strike-offs, lab dips, embroideries, and production submissions for color, quality, scale, and overall aesthetic. Ensure timelines are met to keep on time deliveries.
• Manage, mentor and provide creative direction to junior and mid-level designers.
• Manage freelance and contract print projects where needed.
• Lead print reviews and establish clear standards for artwork quality, file organization, and production handoff.
• Partner with Apparel Design, Gift Design, Product Development, Sourcing, and leadership to align print development with seasonal priorities.
• Collaborate with designers to ensure prints are paired with the right products, silhouettes, fabrics, and techniques.
• Work with domestic and overseas vendors to communicate artwork requirements and resolve development challenges.
• Maintain an organized artwork archive and help establish an efficient seasonal print-development process.
• Ensure artwork is original, appropriately licensed, or cleared for commercial use.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Textile Design, Surface Design, Fashion Design, Illustration, Fine Arts, or a related field.
• 7–10+ years of experience in textile, print, pattern, or surface design, preferably within women’s apparel, or a print-driven lifestyle brand.
• Experience mentoring, managing, or providing creative direction to other designers.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating original artwork, seamless repeats, color development, and artwork applied to finished products.
• Advanced proficiency in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Understanding in Procreate preferred.
• Strong understanding of print repeats, color separation, textile-printing methods, artwork preparation, and production requirements.
• Ability to work across both hand-created and digital artwork.
• Exceptional eye for color, composition, scale, balance, and detail.
• Ability to balance creative vision with customer needs, commercial goals, cost considerations, and production capabilities.
• Strong communication, presentation, organization, and project-management skills.
• Experience working with overseas vendors is preferred.

The Ideal Candidate

You are a passionate artist and collaborative design leader who understands the importance of print and pattern in building a strong brand identity.

You enjoy remaining hands-on while also guiding and developing other designers. You can move comfortably between seasonal creative direction, original artwork development, team mentorship, and detailed production execution.

Portfolio Requirements

Please submit a portfolio featuring:

• Original hand-created and digital artwork
• Seamless repeat patterns
• Florals, geometrics, conversational prints, and supporting patterns
• Colorway development
• Border, engineered, or placement artwork
• Examples of artwork applied to finished products