"At L.L.Bean, we believe the outdoors brings out the best in all of us. We are committed to fostering a culture of diversity and creating safe, inclusive spaces where everyone feels welcome—both here and Outside. We value individual differences and are dedicated to maintaining an inclusive work environment where everyone can bring the best of their experience and talents and truly thrive."
L.L.Bean is seeking a Designer I to join our Product Creation team in Freeport, Maine. In this key role you will be working on Active & Casual Footwear. At
L.L.Bean, design is responsible for the product aesthetic for all product categories.
***This role requires relocation to Maine. We are working a hybrid schedule with a minimum of three days at our Headquarters Building in Freeport, ME.
Key accountabilities include:
- Creating product aesthetic inclusive of color, pattern, and style.
- Partnering with Designers, Product Developers, Last Engineers, Sourcing and Corporate Merchants in conducting market research to evaluate competitive set, identify seasonal trends, and decide on seasonal concept direction.
- Collaborating with Product Development to select toolings, last shapes, materials, outsole/midsole designs, upper designs, technology, colors and trims & relate them to the product design, function, and style.
- Collaborating with Design leadership on seasonal corporate color palettes and ensuring on-brand, commercial color direction and color compositions.
- Creating, designing, and engineering footwear direction and styling; collaborating with Corporate Merchants to recommend lasts, & toolings.
- Creating and deciding on brand appropriate / viable surface pattern and print direction.
Responsibilities:
Strategy (Product Aesthetic, Seasonal Concept Direction, Product Strategy)
- Builds and creates seasonal concept and mood boards to establish and identify key looks, trends, concepts, color, fabric, trim, and silhouette direction.
- Offers on-brand commercially viable product ideas.
- Creates seasonal trend direction, seasonal trend presentation, seasonal trend, and vendor decks.
- Identifies and communicates seasonal color palettes.
- Supports creation of the product design strategy at a collection level, vs. an item level.
Market Research Aesthetic Inspiration and Trend (Conduct Market Research)
- Researches and develops brand appropriate trends and product ideas.
- Conduct research on market and competitive brands - domestic travel for inspiration and trade shows
- Travel to Asia/Vietnam/El Salvador to meet with material suppliers and vendors for research and product development and to ensure all product is commercialized to the very highest standards.
Upfront Planning
- Works with CM (Corporate Merchandise) Managers to ensure viability of products and product opportunity fills need within the assortment.
- Collaborates to select material direction for hand feel, drape aesthetic and partners closely with Product Developers to ensure vision of design, margin and target price is met.
Core Work
- Applies knowledge and expertise to ensure consistency and cohesiveness of line through perfect pairings and cohesive look of the collection and key looks.
- Introduces new and on brand silhouettes and styling details every season.
- Selects all materials and works with sourcing/PD Partners to ensure products passes testing.
- Works with graphics department to instigate graphic and surface pattern direction.
- Present fresh and commercial color and pattern for key items and relist programs to ensure they look fresh and commercial each season.
- Communicates with sourcing partners to ensure materials and all surface pattern is executed to the very highest standard.
- Work with Colorist to approve material lab dips, compound colors, and strike offs, etc.
- Present sketches and proto samples at appropriate check-ins and meetings using Illustrator, Photoshop, visual 3D tools.
- Create and update an accurate pre-production BOM and CC in Flex PLM
- Partner with PD (Product Development) to finalize product details with vendors.
- In collaboration with PD, creates comprehensive development spec packages
- Attends all show fittings to provide relevant feedback regarding fit and styling. - Ensure integrity of design aesthetic and conformance to selected fit block suitable for wearing occasion.
- Attends Retail walkthroughs to ensure retail presentation meets design intent.
General Meetings/M2M Meetings Responsibility
- Ensures all milestones/deadlines are achieved and successful. Attends to align on M2M key strategies, initiatives & actions.
Health and Safety Requirement: Every employee is responsible for contributing to a safe and healthy workplace. Employees are expected to be active participants in health and safety by following all safety policies and procedures, reporting unsafe conditions or at-risk behaviors to leadership, and conducting work in a safe manner. Those in a leadership role are also expected to model safe behaviors, evaluate risk, and ensure that risks are reduced to acceptable levels.
Skills and Qualifications:
- 4-year degree required
- 3+ years of relevant experience required
- Strong cross functional communication and relationship building skills
- High-level discretion and accountability
- Ability to balance strategic and tactical responsibilities
"If you care about the outdoors, joining L.L.Bean is a great way to feel good about what you do. Our benefits package makes a good thing even better, with programs and perks designed to support your health and financial goals. Plus, maintaining a healthy work-life balance and re-charging outside are all part of the plan.
If your experience looks a little different from what we've identified and you think you'd be great at this role, we'd love to learn more about you! At L.L.Bean, we believe the outdoors brings out the best in all of us. We strive to reflect this every day in our commitments to employees and partners and in our efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability."