Head of Design – D2C Consumer Products

The role

The Head of Design owns everything the brand looks like, feels like and ships: brand, industrial design and creative direction. You will work directly with the founders, set the design bar for the company, and lead and rebuild the design team.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You set direction, and in the early months you also do the work.

Key responsibilities

Brand and identity

• Own the brand identity: visual language, characters, colour, typography and tone across every touchpoint.
• Build and maintain brand guidelines so packaging, website, marketplaces, social and retail stay consistent.
• Protect and grow what makes the brand recognisable to kids and trusted by parents.

Industrial and product design

• Lead product design from concept to production: form, colour-material-finish, ergonomics for small hands, and safety.
• Shape the product roadmap with the founders: new categories, collections, themes and characters.
• Work with sourcing, engineering and manufacturers on design for manufacturing, prototyping, tooling and quality.
• Ground design decisions in research with children and parents.

Creative direction

• Direct campaigns, shoots, packaging, launch creatives and content for the website and marketplaces.
• Partner with marketing and growth so performance creatives sell without diluting the brand.
• Oversee the quality of the digital experience with the UI/UX designer.

Team and process

• Hire, mentor and manage the design team across brand, industrial, graphic and UI/UX design; a creative director will join later.
• Set clear briefs, timelines and review rhythms, and make on-time delivery the norm.
• Build a culture of direct, regular feedback.
• Manage agencies, freelancers and illustrators.

What we're looking for

• 10+ years in design, including 3–5 years leading a multi-disciplinary design team.
• A portfolio that shows both brand work and physical consumer products that shipped.
• Strong industrial design understanding: colour-material-finish, stainless steel, plastics and silicone, manufacturing constraints and vendor management.
• Proven creative direction across campaigns, packaging and shoots.
• Experience at a consumer brand, ideally D2C; kids, lifestyle, homeware or FMCG preferred.
• A track record of hiring and growing designers.
• Reliable delivery: ships good work on time, and says so early when a date is at risk.
• Gives and takes feedback openly.
• Fluent in Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma, with enough 3D/CAD knowledge (SolidWorks, Rhino, KeyShot or similar) to review industrial design work.

Good to have

• Experience with kids' products, toys, character design or illustration.
• Knowledge of child-safety and food-contact standards (BPA-free materials, food-grade steel, product certification).
• A degree from a recognised design school (NID, IDC, Srishti, MIT ID, NIFT or equivalent).
• Experience building a design team at an early-stage or fast-growing startup.