Contract Designer / Illustrator

Designer (Contract) The Role: The Contract Designer / Illustrator will support the development of creative assets for licensed consumer products preschool brands. This role will work closely with the CP&E Creative and Product Development teams to create brand-right, trend-relevant artwork, style guides, packaging, and graphic assets that translate successfully across a wide range of consumer product categories. The ideal candidate is comfortable trending, designing and illustrating, understands how creative assets need to function in a licensing environment, and can take projects from concept through production-ready execution. Experience working with kids, preschool, entertainment, character, or lifestyle brands is highly preferred. This is a 6-month fixed term contract role. Responsibilities: • Support the development of seasonal, core, retail, and thematic licensed consumer products style guides. • Create original graphics, illustrations, patterns, icons, badges, typography treatments, borders, backgrounds, and supporting design elements. • Develop compelling character compositions and storytelling moments using approved character assets. • Translate creative direction, seasonal trends, and brand strategy into cohesive visual collections. • Build color palettes, graphic systems, pattern families, editorial treatments, and product-ready artwork. • Develop artwork that can translate across multiple categories including apparel, accessories, home, toys, stationery, hardlines, and softlines. • Prepare organized, production-ready asset packages for licensee and partner use. • Explore multiple creative directions quickly through sketches, thumbnails, and concept development. • Incorporate feedback from Creative, Product Development, Brand, Franchise, and Legal teams. • Support the development and evolution of licensed packaging systems across multiple product categories. • Work within existing brand standards while identifying opportunities to keep packaging fresh, relevant, and competitive at retail. • Work closely with Creative Directors, Designers, Product Development, and Project Management to meet project timelines and deliverables. • Manage multiple assignments simultaneously while maintaining strong attention to detail. • Participate in creative reviews and respond efficiently to feedback and revisions. • Ensure artwork meets brand, legal, technical, and production requirements. • Support special projects including retail presentations, product concepts, key art, trend boards, and partner-facing creative materials as needed. Requirements • 4 years of professional experience in graphic design, illustration, packaging, consumer products, entertainment, or a related creative field. • Strong portfolio demonstrating illustration, graphic design, layout, pattern development, and packaging capabilities. • Experience developing licensed consumer products style guides strongly preferred. • Strong understanding of designing within established brand guidelines while still bringing fresh creative thinking. • Ability to translate a creative brief into a cohesive visual system rather than simply executing individual graphics. • Strong understanding of color, typography, composition, hierarchy, pattern, and visual storytelling. • Experience preparing professional production-ready files for external partners. • Experience designing collections of digital product mock-ups • Comfortable working within fast-moving creative environments with multiple rounds of feedback. • Knowledge of Mac OSX, Adobe Suite Programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) • Ability to work across the needs of a global team Reference: ECNJOBID-66-249-73-3 in the application