Freelance CMF Designer​/Performance Footwear

Location / Remote (Europe/UK-based) with occasional travel to Lille, France

Start / February 2027

Duration / 6 months

Availability / Approximately two days per week (with flexibility around key calendar milestones)

We are supporting Kipsta in finding an experienced freelance CMF Designer to work alongside its footwear design team as it develops its future team-sport footwear collections.

This is an opportunity to help shape the CMF direction across a broad performance footwear portfolio, bringing a strong point of view in colour, material finish and graphic execution. You will join at an important point in the development calendar, contributing to the refinement of the AW28 and SS29 ranges.

The role will work across team sports, with basketball, football and futsal among the priority categories. You will collaborate closely with Kipsta’s footwear designers to create cohesive, relevant and commercially considered product stories across multiple projects.

You will support the footwear team in translating product and brand direction into clear, elevated CMF execution.

You will:

• Develop and refine colourways, material direction, finishes and graphic details across footwear projects
• Create CMF stories that feel cohesive across a range while giving each product a clear identity
• Bring a strong understanding of colour, trend, consumer relevance and performance-footwear product
• Work closely with designers to evolve concepts into considered, production-ready CMF direction
• Support the definition of graphic direction and applications where relevant
• Create clear CMF presentations, specifications and guidance to support development
• Collaborate remotely with the team through regular video meetings, with occasional travel to Lille for key working sessions

• 4+ years’ experience in CMF and Graphic design within footwear, ideally performance footwear
• A strong portfolio demonstrating colour, material, finish and graphic work across footwear
• Experience creating and refining colourways, material direction and finishing details for commercial product ranges
• A strong eye for product, trend, colour and consumer relevance
• Comfortable working independently as a freelancer while collaborating closely with an internal design team
• Clear communicator, able to articulate and present a point of view to different stakeholders
• Experience working in an international footwear environment is preferred
• Based in Europe or the UK, and able to travel occasionally to Lille, France

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT US?

Decathlon is a family-owned company, founded in 1976, and inspired by the belief that the best sports products should be accessible to everyone. Yes, we’re an international sports retailer with 2080 stores in 56 countries, and if you look a little closer, you’ll see we’re so much more.

We’re unique because we have our own in-house brands. We are experts in our fields, and we draw on our knowledge and experience to create, design and manufacture our own products in our own studios and labs. Currently, we have over 20 Decathlon brands, each dedicated to a specific sport or practice. And, our family ownership means we’re here for the long term.

We reinvest our profits into research and development, helping to lower the cost of participating in sport.

We’re all sports enthusiasts who’ve turned our passion into our job.

We come from all over the world; an international community made up of semi-pros, casual participants and complete beginners.

We know that you want to play to win for your local team, kickstart your training and compete to the best possible standard because we want those things too.

We believe that sport is for everyone. We’re in your corner, designing, making and marketing the gear and equipment we’ll all take to the pitch, park, court, water and track.

In a world where sport has the potential to give so much, providing innovative, enticing and high-performance products at prices that are accessible to everyone isn’t a job, it’s our mission.

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