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Senior Brand Designer (Full Time)

Full-time · New York or Remote (EST preferred)
Estimated Salary Range: $120,000–$145,000 (base)

We are hiring a senior 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.

This is a senior, hands-on role. You own the work, contribute at a high level individually, and help define how modern brand systems are designed and built.

Why This Role Exists

The expectations placed on early-stage companies have changed.

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 no longer about producing a fixed identity. The work is to design systems that carry intent forward as companies grow, teams change, and products evolve.

New tools and systems expand what’s possible, but taste, judgment, and visual point of view remain the core responsibility. This role exists to operate at that intersection, where rigor, speed, and craft have to coexist.

About Little Plains

Little Plains is a modern brand and product studio. Our work is built in context, alongside design and product, guided by strong points of view and supported by AI-driven systems that make speed and rigor compatible. Strategy only matters if it shows up in the work itself.

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.

What You Will Do

This is a senior, hands-on role that combines individual craft with leadership.

Day to day, you will:

  • Own brand design on your projects end to end, leading initiatives across products, teams, and AI-informed workflows
  • Create brand worlds from strategy through visual systems, not just surface-level identities
  • Define brand DNA: typography, color, layout, motion, and structure — that produces consistent yet flexible expression
  • Design systems that translate across websites, products, content, and real-world use
  • Think in systems, not just deliverables
  • Explore widely and quickly, then make clear, confident design decisions
  • Work closely with strategy to align narrative and visual systems
  • Collaborate with developers to ensure systems hold up in real builds
  • Translate high-quality, hands-on design work into systems that scale over time
  • Move fluidly between designing, directing, and architecting, leading by example, not hierarchy

Design matters when it shows up consistently in the real world.

How We Work

We do not design in isolation.

Design is developed in context, alongside strategy, product, and interaction decisions. Work is shared through live artifacts and evolving systems, not static presentations.

Our studio operates on connected systems rather than disconnected tools. AI is used as part of our daily workflow to accelerate exploration, iteration, and synthesis, allowing teams to move faster without lowering standards. It supports the work, but it does not replace taste, judgment, or responsibility. That’s on you, and on us.

The Bar for Craft

We care deeply about quality.

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.

What We’re Looking For

  • 5–8+ years of experience in brand design or related roles
  • Excited to work in AI-informed workflows without outsourcing taste or judgment
  • Experience working with early-stage or high-growth companies
  • Demonstrated ability to build brand systems, not just logos or assets
  • Strong instincts for typography, layout, and visual structure
  • Comfort working across strategy, design, and systems
  • Curiosity about new tools paired with deep traditional craft
  • Ability to take responsibility and move work forward

Compensation & Benefits

  • Competitive base salary
  • Paid time off including vacation, holidays, and sick leave
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Profit-sharing tied to studio performance
  • Equity-upside participation for long-term team members
  • Flexible work setup with a preference for EST collaboration

What to Submit

  • Resume or LinkedIn profile
  • Portfolio showing brand systems across applications
  • A short note on the kinds of brand problems you want to work on next

If you want to design serious brand systems, building identities that scale, evolve, and actually get used, let’s talk.

Apply Now

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