Head of Design

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.
• Product and collection concepts
• 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