Design Manager - Kraemer Design + Production

Design Manager

Kraemer Design + Production (KD+P) is seeking a Design Manager to lead and coordinate the creative development of family-focused, hands-on interactive exhibit experiences. KD+P specializes in interactive experiential exhibit design and production, guiding projects from concept design through installation for museums, children's museums, nature centers, visitor centers, entertainment experiences, and other community-based attractions. The Design Manager will oversee the design process across all active projects, ensuring that each experience is imaginative, educationally accurate, visitor-centered, buildable, on schedule, and aligned with each client's content, goals, budget, and audience.

This role is ideal for a creative leader who can manage multidisciplinary teams, translate client content into engaging physical and digital experiences, and balance big-picture storytelling with practical execution. The Design Manager will work closely with project managers, designers, graphic designers, writers, fabricators, vendors, consultants, and clients to deliver memorable exhibit environments that invite exploration, learning, play, and repeat engagement for visitors of all ages.

• Lead the day-to-day design management of all assigned exhibit, attraction, and visitor experience projects from discovery and concept development through design documentation, fabrication coordination, and installation support.
• Guide multidisciplinary design teams in developing engaging, hands-on experiences that translate client content into clear stories, intuitive visitor flow, age-appropriate interactions, and memorable family learning moments.
• Establish and maintain project design standards, creative goals, deliverable expectations, and review processes across concept, schematic design, design development, final design, bid documentation, and production support phases.
• Collaborate with project teams to align design scope, schedule, staffing, fees, budgets, milestones, client reviews, and production requirements.
• Serve as a secondary point of contact for clients, facilitating design meetings, presenting concepts, documenting decisions, gathering feedback, and helping clients understand how design choices support their goals.
• Review drawings, graphic packages, exhibit descriptions, interactive concepts, material selections, finish palettes, lighting and audio-visual approaches, and fabrication details for clarity, consistency, feasibility, accessibility, durability, and visitor impact.
• Mentor designers and design support staff by providing constructive feedback, prioritizing workloads, encouraging professional growth, and helping team members strengthen their exhibit design, storytelling, documentation, and presentation skills.
• Coordinate with fabricators, vendors, consultants, architects, engineers, media producers, educators, evaluators, and internal team members to ensure creative intent is preserved through production and installation.
• Help identify design risks, scope gaps, budget pressures, schedule conflicts, accessibility concerns, safety considerations, and fabrication challenges early in the project process.
• Support prototyping, mockups, user testing, and iterative refinement of interactive experiences, particularly for children, families, school groups, and multigenerational audiences.
• Promote design solutions that are inclusive, accessible, safe, durable, maintainable, educationally meaningful, and appropriate for high-use public environments.
• Contribute to proposals, interviews, pre-design planning, client workshops, and internal process improvements as needed.

• Bachelor's degree in exhibit design, industrial design, interior design, architecture, experiential design, environmental graphic design, museum studies, theater design, or a related field; equivalent professional experience will also be considered.
• 10+ years of professional design experience, preferably in museums, children's museums, science centers, nature centers, themed entertainment, visitor attractions, experiential environments, or custom public-facing installations.
• 3+ years of experience leading…