Responsibilities

• Leads, coaches, and develops the Industrial Design and Graphic Design teams; establishes expectations for design quality, collaboration, accountability, and performance.
• Reviews concepts and presentations to ensure solutions are visually compelling, strategically relevant, technically sound, manufacturable, and appropriate for the customer
• Leads brainstorming and concept-development activities to create differentiated solutions that address customer, brand, shopper, budget, and retail needs.
• Stays current on retail, design, material, manufacturing, and technology trends, including practical uses of generative AI for design exploration.
• Partners with Sales on customer meetings, project kickoffs, prototype reviews, presentations, and new business opportunities; helps qualify where creative resources should be invested.
• Provides creative and technical direction from initial brief and ideation through client presentation, engineering, prototyping, and production.
• Reviews the WebCenter schedule and active workloads to monitor deadlines, revisions, project progress, and resource capacity.
• Tracks key measures such as project throughput, development timing, win rates, freelance spending, and first-run orders; recommends improvements to staffing, tools, capabilities, and processes.
• Participates in preliminary estimating and design-to-cost discussions, balancing creativity with material, manufacturing, timing, shipping, installation, and budget considerations.
• Reviews new projects, determines the appropriate development path and deliverables, assigns work, balances internal and freelance resources, work capacity, and adjusts priorities as needs change.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in industrial design or a related field, or significant equivalent experience in retail display, fixture, or in-store environment design.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience leading a design or creative team in a manager or director role.
• Strong working knowledge of product development, including CAD, sketching, rendering, rapid prototyping, materials, and manufacturing processes for displays, fixtures, or similar physical products.
• Recent hands-on technical experience and the ability to support design project execution during periods of high workload.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams, set direction, provide constructive feedback, manage competing priorities, and develop talent.
• Strong understanding of how design decisions affect cost, manufacturability, timing, customer value, and business results.
• Excellent verbal, written, presentation, organizational, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities and work effectively with different disciplines, personalities, and organizational levels.
• Ability to perform the essential functions of the position and maintain regular, punctual attendance consistent with applicable federal, state, and local requirements.

Preferred

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office; familiarity with generative AI and emerging design technologies preferred.
• Experience in permanent POP displays, retail fixtures, store environments, shopper marketing, or a closely related industry strongly preferred.

Benefits

• Competitive 401K match and a historically generous profit-sharing retirement savings contribution
• Paid Time Off and IL Paid Leave after 30 days of employment
• 9 Paid Holidays
• Medical PPO, Health Savings Account, Dental, and Vision insurance
• Wellness Program
• Life Insurance, Short Term and Long Term Disability available
• Health Fitness, Safety Prescription Glasses, and Safety Shoes Reimbursement annually
• Tuition Reimbursement available after 1 year of service
• Opportunities to advance your career and compensation level
• Annual increases