Senior Brand Designer

At XXIX | Sanctuary Computer — we’re building a different type of technology shop. Based in NYC’s Chinatown (and remote), the way we approach building things is more like a restaurant than a traditional agency, with an emphasis in providing our clients with an outspoken sense of comfort and hospitality.

We work in design, branding and engineering roles, with clients like Nike, General Electric, The Nobel Prize, Herman Miller, Adobe, Dig Inn and many others. That same thoughtfulness is applied inward, too. We understand that technologists & engineers have a strong sense of art and integrity, and are happier being a part of a team that promotes those values.

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We are hiring contract-based senior and director level brand designers with experience leading brand projects and activating brands on the web.

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About garden3d

We are worker owned creative collective, innovating on everything from brands and IRL communities to IoT devices and cross platform apps. We share profit, open source everything, spin out new businesses, and invest in exciting ideas through financial and/or in-kind contributions.

Our client roster includes Google, Stripe, Figma, Hinge, Black Socialists in America, ACLU, Pratt, Parsons, Mozilla, The Nobel Prize, MIT, Gnosis, Etsy & Gagosian. We’re the software team behind innovative products like The Light Phone & Mill, and we a global, decentralized community space collective called Index Space.

We think of our garden3d as collective for creative people, prioritizing a happy, talented, and diverse studio culture. We work on projects that bring value to our world, and we balance deep care for the work we do with a genuine curiosity about life outside of our jobs.

Who we’re looking for:

Must Have Competencies:

• A portfolio of work exhibiting experience in a range of disciplines and media with an emphasis in branding, strategy, art direction and web activation.
• Agency or studio experience leading a project from concept to launch, including project planning and leading a team
• Confidence making creative decisions and provide feedback across all aspects of a project that improve the quality of the work, push the boundaries of the brief, and reinforce the unique perspective of the studio
• Work displays a mastery of design fundamentals such as typography, layout, etc.
• Clearly and confidently presents their work and ideas visually, orally and in writing to any kind of audience
• Experience leading creative teams, coaching others, and actively seeking guidance from others
• Always seeks unique, novel solutions to design problems and draws from a variety of influences
• Willingness to be involved in the planning and management of projects to ensure they run smoothly and efficiently
• Driven by strong conceptual thinking rather than purely aesthetic outcomes
• Has a clear point of view and produces work that reflects it, with refined personal taste and impeccable attention to detail, especially in typography
• Highly organized, a proactive self-starter, modest, and has a strong work ethic
• Values a self-directed, egalitarian, and equitable work environment
• Gives and receives feedback generously, respectfully, and with openness

Skills:

• Can prepare and facilitate workshops and internal research
• Uses established and original frameworks for developing strategic positioning, identity systems
• Ability to adapt and find solutions to keep projects moving forward
• Always picks the right tool for the job with an expansive idea of what those tools can be
• Can clearly define the boundaries and opportunities of a project in a written brief
• Thinks about visual identity systems in terms of scalability to different types of media, format, use-cases, and applications
• Designs systems that scale and flex rather than break or become bland
• Ability to organize large sets of information or disparate ideas into clear messaging, taxonomies, and patterns
• Keen eye for choosing, commissioning, creating, and critiquing imagery (illustration, photography, iconography, etc.)
• Can define, develop and create usable interactive experiences, interfaces, and other screen-based designs
• Can set the tone, provide critique, and create prototypes or production-ready motion, time-based, and non-linear designs
• Balances expression/utility, originality/expectation, simplicity/uniqueness
• Software, technology, and basic tool literacy is never a barrier to productivity
• Works efficiently and priorities work appropriately
• Documents their own work
• Builds processes and systems that improve efficiency and consistency

Nice to Have Competencies:

We’re always pitching for new and exciting technology niches. Some of the areas below are relevant to us!

• Comfortable iterating on website UI/UX for marketing and e-commerce websites
• Experience facilitating conversations around content for a website project
• Experience with motion design and animation tools like After Effects, Principle, or Framer Motion

Compensation

Our pay scale ranges from $85 p/hr to $150 p/hr pending client/seniority. Our projects are rarely less than 6 full time weeks.

We prefer long standing relationships with highly accountable and communicative team members, so we encourage candidates to expect longer term engagements.

Who you are

The person we’re looking for is happy, relaxed and easy to get along with and appreciates a commitment to a culture of transparency, non-dictatorial leadership styles, and alternative methodologies. They’re flexible on anything except conceits that will lower their usually outstanding work quality. They work “smart” by carefully managing their workflow and team.

How we interview

After you submit your application, a member of our team will reach out. Our interview process starts with an intro call to answer any questions you have about the role and to learn a bit more about your experience and interests.

From there, we’ll follow up with a panel interview call where you get to meet a few members of our team, to openly discuss some of our challenges and ensure your skills and interests align with where we’re going as a business.

For qualified candidates, the process wraps with a reference call, and an offer to follow.

How we work:

We believe that there’s a better balance between the poles of freelancing & full time, and for that reason Sanctuary works differently to most shops:

Transparency & Ownership: We release out Profit & Loss statements to the community each year, open source our best ideas, and talk business & money with everyone in the company. We’re proud to run our business with integrity, and for that reason we share everything with our team & community.

150% Carbon Negative: Our studio offsets 150% of the carbon we use to do business each year, dated back to our founding in 2015. We turn down work that is not in line with our morals, and we encourage our peers to do the same. We were certified climate neutral earlier this year.

Strong Morals: Since our founding, we've turned down somewhere between $1mm - $2mm of work that didn't meet our moral standards. (Most of that was DTC brands that can't show a valid sustainability initiative).

• Async & Decentralized: We use tools optimized for calm, thoughtful communication, and opt for async whenever possible. We fight hard to maintain our focus time.
• Remote Friendly: Our company is fluent in remote work, making our workplace more decentralized, and democratized in the process.
• Ideas & Products: In our spare studio time, we work to build our own open source or internal products to diversify & bolster our income. We create amazing technology products for our clients, so why not for the studio?

→ Read more on our Substack, over here, or our Medium, over there.

Quick tip! Adding a Loom recording to your profile in our form to showcase your skillset can really make your application stand out!

Please click the important link below or copy the URL to continue your application. We’d love to learn more about your skill sets and your interest in this role.