Job Title

Our client, a well known beauty brand, is looking for a Director of Packaging Design to join their team on a freelance basis with a conversion to full time starting as soon as order to be considered for this opportunity, you must be able to work onsite in Manhattan Tuesday - Thursday.As the Director of Packaging Design, you will be defining the aesthetic, structural design intent, and sensorial expression of the brand's packaging. The Director of Packaging Design will ensure consistency across categories, channels, and markets positioning packaging as a cohesive, scalable brand system instead of a series of one-off executions. The Director of Packaging Design will have creative authorship and design intent of packaging across all formats and franchises, not engineering, production, timelines, or budgets. One of the brand's most powerful assets is its packaging and the Director of Packaging Design will ensure that packaging remains a strategic driver of brand equity and recognition as the business grows across categories and markets.The Director of Packaging Design will sit under the VP of Marketing + Creative Operations and will be directly overseeing 2 part time freelancers.The Director of Packaging Design will be responsible for: - owning the creative vision and design intent of all primary and secondary packaging across product categories - defining and evolving global standards for form language and silhouette, graphic systems and hierarchy, color, finishes, and materials (from a design perspective)- ensuring all packaging aligns with the broader brand world, creative direction, and strategy- developing and rolling out global packaging architecture systems- enabling scale, speed, and consistency across SKUs, regions, and categories while preserving creative distinction - leading both structural (3D) and graphic (2D) packaging design development - partnering closely with Packaging Development and Supply Chain to translate creative intent into feasible structures and to protect design integrity through engineering, tooling, and execution - reviewing and approving dielines, renders, mockups, and samples prior to production to ensure they meet established creative standards - designing packaging systems that perform across specialty retail, DTC, unboxing experiences, travel retail, pop ups, and flagship environments - partnering with Retail Experience and Visual Merchandising teams to ensure packaging integrates into merchandising strategies, planograms, and in store storytelling - ensuring that packaging translates into PDPs, thumbnails, and social content - partnering with Brand Voice and Product Marketing teams to define claims hierarchy, iconography systems, and visual semiotics - acting as the design authority for sustainability expression in partnership with Supply Chain- integrating sustainable materials and solutions in a brand-right, premium manner- making design decisions with a strong understanding of cost drivers, scalability constraints, and manufacturing realities - partnering with the Creative Operations and Regional Enablement teams to codify global packaging guidelines, support regional adaptations within clear guardrails, and to prevent over-localization or fragmentation - leading, inspiring, and setting standards for external design agencies, vendors, and creative partners- leading and mentoring 2 freelance packaging designers - contributing to the development of a company culture rooted in craft excellence, attention to detail, and customer-centric design thinking- elevating packaging design as a core creative discipline within the organizationREQUIREMENTS: - 8+ yeas of experience in packaging design (2D & 3D) with a beauty, fragrance, luxury, or lifestyle brand - a strong portfolio that demonstrates thoughtfully executed structural packaging, graphic systems, materials, and finishes- a deep understanding of packagi