Brand Designer

Company Description

Club Kuma is a creative studio that partners with clients and creators to brand, design, and manufacture award-winning hero products. Built on a heritage of creativity and innovation, we are one team, in-house. By delivering elevated design and unparalleled service, we set the trend. Then set it again.

With headquarters in sunny Santa Monica and a creative workplace culture, Club Kuma is designed to have fun. We’re committed to building lasting partnerships with all our collaborators, from the creators who inspire our products and brands, to the people we hire to make them. You’ll find competitive salaries and benefits with every full-time position, because our team believes in rewarding a job well done.

Role Description

We are looking for a detail-oriented, well-versed Brand Designer who is passionate about lifestyle consumer products, beauty, apparel, and more. If you want to be part of an exciting start-up, we want to talk to you! As a Brand Designer, you are thoughtful, creative, and a masterful storyteller who crafts comprehensive visual brands and identities. You will work within the creative studio and closely with the strategy team to solve both internal and external challenges.

You will be responsible for creating branding assets such as brand identity and style guides, type systems, iconography, patterns, and packaging. A core part of this role involves bringing products to life through exceptional graphic design — from print collateral and retail packaging to digital assets and branded materials. Your work will span multiple touchpoints, ensuring brand consistency across every format and surface. You will also assist in finalizing assets based on creative direction. This role is full-time on-site at our offices in Santa Monica.

What you’ll do:

• Consult with leadership and other team members to achieve client and studio objectives.
• Work as a team member to comprehensively execute brand deliverables such as identity, logomarks/logotypes, iconography, color palettes, patterns, packaging, and web.
• Create beautiful design systems that make a positive impact.
• Envision and execute a brand visual system in a holistic way.
• Understand timelines and meet established schedules, timeframes, and deliverables set to be delivered to clients.
• Work on branding projects, from brainstorming and initial concepts through final production.
• Create comprehensive brand identity style guides and presentations.
• Design and produce print-ready packaging files, including dielines, label layouts, folding carton structures, and retail-ready formats across a variety of substrates and finishes.
• Apply strong graphic design fundamentals — typography, layout, hierarchy, and color theory — across all branded touchpoints including packaging, marketing collateral, digital assets, and environmental applications.
• Collaborate with production partners, printers, and manufacturers to ensure packaging designs translate accurately from concept to physical product, managing pre-press requirements and print specifications.
• Maintain the highest standards for all deliverables.
• Meet deadlines and take initiative with project management.
• Hold meetings with relevant stakeholders (finance, management, marketing, design, etc.) for appropriate deliverables.
• Be culturally connected by understanding new waves and trends.
• Actively contribute to the development of the studio culture and standards of quality.
• Always create an environment that is collaborative, dependable, insightful, innovative, memorable, passionate, agile, driven, diverse, analytical, and deliberate.
• Once settled into the position, bring new processes and improvement ideas to the table.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

What you have:

• Prefer a bachelor's degree or higher in Graphic Design or a similar field.
• 5–10 years of work experience in design, agency, or a related field.
• Must be able to show a portfolio of work that reflects creative thinking with a broad range of examples — including branding, graphic design, and packaging work.
• Demonstrated experience with packaging design, including knowledge of dielines, structural formats, print production, and pre-press file preparation.
• Strong graphic design foundation with expertise in typography, layout composition, color theory, and visual hierarchy applied across both print and digital formats.
• Experience with creating comprehensive brand deliverables such as identity, style guides, iconography, etc.
• Proficient/Expert in Adobe Suite, particularly Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign for packaging and print workflows.
• Familiarity with packaging production processes including offset, flexographic, and digital printing, as well as finishing techniques such as embossing, foil stamping, and spot UV.
• Collaborative and ego-free personality, with enthusiasm for working with and receiving feedback from our team of designers, marketers, and brand managers.
• Ability to receive direction as well as take initiative.
• Succinct ability to articulate and explain design decisions to teammates and clients.
• Experience with visual design mockups, including product and packaging mockups.
• In-depth technical knowledge of product development as it relates to graphic design (printing, web, mobile app development, etc.).
• Excellent at creating and maintaining cross-functional working relationships.
• Exceptional visual and oral communication skills.
• Must be self-motivated and able to manage multiple parallel-path projects.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver successful designs under tight timing constraints and provide examples of such scenarios throughout career.
• Bonus tool-kit: Experience in animation, coding, and/or interaction design is a bonus.

We offer a great package including PTO, benefits, 401K, and holidays. Compensation $85,000-$100,000 DOE

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.