Contract to start, with opportunity for full-time
New York or Remote (EST preferred)
Contract rate: $80–$125/hr | Full-time base salary: $85,000–$125,000 (base)
We are hiring a brand designer to lead visual identity, brand systems, and design direction for early-stage companies.
At Little Plains, brand design does not stop at assets or guidelines. It lives in systems that show up across products, websites, and real-world use. Design is how strategy becomes visible, usable, and scalable.
You contribute at a high level individually and help define how modern brand systems are designed and built.
Founders are asked to move faster, spend more efficiently, and still deliver work that feels considered, credible, and differentiated. The old tradeoffs between speed, quality, and cost no longer hold, but meeting this moment requires a different way of designing.
Brand design is the work of designing systems that carry intent forward as companies grow, teams change, and products evolve.
One thing that sets this work apart: we deliver brand systems in both human-facing formats and agent-readable ones. The systems we build have to work for a person and for a machine. That is a newer design problem, and it is one we are actively working through.
The tools are faster now. Deciding what a brand needs to look like and why still takes someone with a point of view.
Little Plains is a modern brand and product studio. We work primarily with early-stage companies, often from pre-launch through Series A, at moments where clarity, speed, and conviction matter most. Our partners are founders and small senior teams building new products, categories, and narratives under real constraints.
We operate as an embedded creative partner rather than a traditional digital agency, building brand, product, and go-to-market work into cohesive systems that can scale as companies grow. Our work spans healthcare, biotech, SaaS, and consumer products.
Day to day, you will:
Design is developed in context, alongside strategy, product, and interaction decisions. Work is shared through live artifacts and evolving systems, not static presentations.
AI is part of how we work. We care more about the judgment you bring to it than the tools you are using.
This role requires strong visual judgment, typographic rigor, and the confidence to make decisions. Systems should feel intentional, durable, and considered, not trendy or over-engineered.
If you want to design serious brand systems, building identities that scale, evolve, and actually get used, let's talk.
Little Plains is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law, including the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws.
In accordance with the NYC Fair Chance Act, we consider applicants with criminal histories. Any background check will occur only after a conditional offer of employment has been made.
Thank You.
We appreciate your consideration. We will do our best to view every submission carefully, and in a timely manner. Please allow a few business days for us to get back to your submission, and we look forward to hopefully talking more.
Cheers,
Little Plains