Associate Designer, Licensing

** Serving the needs of all families with young children,
** Carter's Inc. is the largest North American apparel retailer exclusively for babies and young children, encompassing Carter's, Osh Kosh B'gosh, Skip
* Hop and Little Planet brands. Meaningful work, constant learning, genuine people, and a community guided by core values that promote inclusion and innovation is in everything we do. There are many reasons to build your career at Carter's.

** HOW YOU'LL MAKE AN IMPACT:*
* This Design Associate role will support work tied to the Brand Heat & Licensing Team, a cross-functional and agile team focused on driving aspiration and energy through product, storytelling, collaboration, licensing, consumer insights, and culturally relevant brand moments. This role requires a strong sense of trend awareness, urgency, creativity, confidence and the ability to support special projects that move outside of traditional seasonal process timelines.

This role typically reports into a Design Director is based in our Buckhead office in our hybrid/in-office work environment (4 days/week in-office).

50% Design Process & Communication

+ Support fast-turn concept development for Brand Heat initiatives, including collaborations, licensing capsules, trend-driven storytelling, and culturally relevant product opportunities.

+ Prepare polished concept decks, presentation materials, and product boards that clearly communicate creative direction to leadership and cross-functional partners.

+ Partner closely with design, merchandising, product development, marketing, brand leadership, and license partners to align on deliverables, provide design feedback, and move work forward.

+ Create original prints, patterns, and graphic artwork for collections, and apply them to product sketches and CADs

+ Manage day-to-day execution of special projects, including line sheets, Miro updates, silhouette tracking, color palettes, and ongoing communication with internal teams.

+ Support product execution through pre-production art review, fittings, sketch updates, and design detail edits that impact final commercialization.

30% Product Line Development

+ Support development of special capsule collections and collaboration concepts that may sit outside of core seasonal line architecture.

+ Adapt existing silhouettes or create newness for collaboration, licensing, and trend-right product opportunities while maintaining accuracy across style details, graphics, trims, materials, and presentation assets.

+ Sketch technical drawings in Illustrator, apply prints and graphics to working line sheets, update the silo matrix, and independently design portions of a program with supervisor mentorship.

20% Creative Concept

+ Research consumer trends, popular culture, competitive collaborations, influencers, artists, and licensing opportunities to inform Brand Heat ideation.

+ Translate consumer insights and trend research into brand-right collaboration ideas, creative concepts, and storytelling across silhouette, trim, color, print, and graphic direction.

+ Contribute to inspiration boards, collaboration decks, sample requests, and presentation-ready creative materials for internal and external reviews.

** WE'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU IF:*
* Must have:

+ Proficient in Adobe Illustrator, Miro and Microsoft Office.
** Must have a portfolio*
* +

Experience with graphic design and print and pattern creation.

+ Strong visual presentation skills with the ability to help create compelling decks, boards, and concept materials.

+ Confidence in leading meetings, presenting concepts and design work, and delivering clear, constructive design feedback to cross-functional partners.

+ Strong interest in collaborations, licensing, trend research, brand storytelling, and culturally relevant product creation.

+ Ability to work independently with limited day-to-day direction while managing multiple priorities.

+ Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to work through challenges proactively before escalating for support.

Preferred skills and experience:

+ Has basic knowledge of garment construction, silhouettes, colorways, sewing techniques, fabrication, and trim.

+ Working knowledge of Product Lifecycle Management tool preferred.

+ Ability to shift between long-term seasonal work and quick-turn opportunity projects.

+ Comfort working in an agile, highly collaborative, and fast-evolving environment.

+ Understanding of print scale, repeat, placement, and how graphic and print execution impact final product.

+ Comfort…