Head of Design

Overview

Our client is seeking a Design Director to serve as a close creative partner to the founder and lead the execution of ideas across product, packaging, gifting, visual merchandising, and special projects. Based in Los Angeles, this full-time, on-site role is ideal for a multidisciplinary design leader who can take an initial concept from an open, collaborative conversation and carry it through to a finished, produced outcome. This is a high-visibility opportunity to shape a growing luxury business, build a design function, and define how the company expresses itself across objects, spaces, and partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Partner closely with the founder to translate early-stage creative concepts into fully realized design outcomes.

• Lead design across multiple touchpoints, including:

  • Product and collection concepts

  • Packaging development

  • VIP gifting and merchandise

  • Visual merchandising and store presentation

  • Partner and collaboration projects

• Own the design process after initial concept discussions, driving work from idea through prototyping, vendor development, production, and final execution.

• Develop packaging and object solutions that go beyond standard vendor offerings, identifying new materials, fabrication methods, and manufacturing partners as needed.

• Respond to both long-range seasonal initiatives and fast-turn requests, balancing planned work with urgent business needs.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with product development, marketing, retail, and sales to ensure design solutions support broader business goals.

• Evaluate in-store presentation and customer-facing environments, identifying opportunities to improve how product and collections are experienced.

• Support external collaborations by working directly with partner design teams and adapting to outside timelines and processes.

• Manage and develop junior creative talent, beginning with one direct report, while helping define the future structure of the team.

• Build systems, workflows, and standards for a growing design function within a fast-moving luxury organization.

Requirements

• 10+ years of design experience, with a multidisciplinary portfolio spanning physical product, packaging, and spatial, retail, or environmental expression.

• Experience in luxury, fashion, jewelry, beauty, lifestyle, or adjacent consumer categories where product, packaging, and brand experience intersect.

• Proven ability to take a rough or partially formed concept and turn it into a finished, produced object or experience.

• Strong three-dimensional design sensibility, with fluency in materials, form, fabrication, and production.

• Experience sourcing, developing, and negotiating with vendors, including manufacturers outside traditional category norms.

• Ability to manage multiple timelines at once, from seasonal planning to short-deadline projects with quick turnaround.

• People management experience, with the ability to mentor emerging talent and help build a team over time.

• Comfort working in an entrepreneurial, founder-led environment where ideas may begin collaboratively and evolve quickly.

• A practical, solutions-oriented approach, with the judgment to assess what it will take to deliver an idea and how to make it happen.

• Portfolio required, including examples of product, packaging, and any spatial or retail-related work.

• Preferred qualifications include:

  • Experience running an independent studio, practice, or brand before moving in-house

  • Background in art, architecture, sculpture, industrial design, or fabrication

  • Experience partnering directly with a founder or creative principal

  • Exposure to brand collaborations or capsule projects with external partners

  • Experience building a small design team from an early stage