Senior Specialist - SMU Designer FTW

In short

This role will be rooted within our CMD SMU (Special Make-Up) design team, with a strong interdisciplinary collaboration alongside Product Design, Innovation, Color, Materials, and the respective Product Management team. You will be responsible for driving ON’s seasonal CMD SMU projects from a creative and strategic perspective, ensuring our collections are developed according to our future business needs while simultaneously weaving in the desires of our retail partners, distributors, and target markets.

The spectrum of partnerships and coinciding product is vast and versatile in this role; requiring a sharp eye for modern trends, a significant global / cultural understanding, an open‑mind aesthetic and a design practice that brings a unique perspective to the development of our collections. You navigate with ease in either macro or micro trend environments and have the ability to understand markets, regions and communities you will closely work with.

Additionally, you are a strong technical team player who can evolve in an ever‑changing, fast‑paced environment that requires balancing hyper‑creative tasks with administrative‑design duties.

• Focus on
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Collaborate with multiple counterparts in different teams (Product Managers, Merchandisers, Developers, Strategizers, etc.) on both account‑focused and inline collections.
• Analyze Consumer Behavior:
  Analyze consumer behavior, market trends, and lifestyle shifts to identify opportunities for innovative color and material directions.
• Translate Consumer Insights:
  Translate consumer insights into seasonal color / material stories, and design narratives that resonate with target audiences.
• Monitor Global Trends:
  Monitor global fashion, sport, culture, and retail trends to anticipate emerging consumer preferences and influence future product strategies.
• Balance Creativity and Commercial Viability:
  Use qualitative and quantitative insights to balance consumer desirability, brand identity, innovation, and commercial viability.
• Present Design Recommendations:
  Present consumer‑driven design recommendations supported by research, storytelling, and visual communication.
• Champion a Consumer‑First Mindset:
  Champion a consumer‑first mindset throughout the product creation process, ensuring color and material decisions enhance both performance and emotional connection.
• Design into Briefs:
  Design into briefs, interpret feedback, and create appropriate ideation solutions that fit the entire spectrum; ranging from relevant‑and‑commercial to energetic‑and‑forward‑thinking.
• Communicate Design Decisions:
  Verbally discuss ideas with a strong emphasis on WHY certain paths and decisions were made.
• Collaborate Across CMD:
  Work closely with the greater CMD team on defining signature executions that will bond our head‑to‑toe collections together.
• Drive Material Innovation:
  Proactively scavenge the landscape for the latest print, material, finish and colouring technologies that will challenge our product, brand and industry.
• Partner with R&D:
  In collaboration with our R&D material specialists, ensure that only materials which fulfill all functionality and sustainability criteria are selected for projects you lead — while pushing to establish what pinnacle expression through materialization could be for us in the future.
• Own Projects:
  Own projects from conversations and concepts all the way through to tech‑packs and final delivery, collaborating hand‑in‑hand with our Zurich‑based development team and overseas partners.
• Strengthen Industry Knowledge:
  Increase our industry knowledge by attending key retailer sell‑in meetings, trade shows, brick‑and‑mortar stores, regional markets and partnering with our internal teams on consumer insights.
• Support Development:
  Oversee developmental duties including color CAD tech‑packs, material map creation, shell pattern alterations and graphic / artwork adjustments.

• Education & Experience:
  
  Completed a Bachelor or Masters degree in Textile Design, Industrial / Product Design, Graphic Design or any other related field.
• CMD
  
  Experience:
  
  5+ years of working experience in the CMD segment within the apparel, accessories, or…