Art Director, Licensed Product Design

About the company

The company is on a mission to create one billion magical moments.  We combine art x engineering to create the most magical paper art cards & gifts.  Featured on Shark Tank in 2015, the company has become one of the top 10 Shark Tank investments with over $300m in lifetime sales ($30m+ annually).  The company consistently ranks in the top Google results for cards online, enjoys 29% national brand awareness in the category, and has helped its customers create over 65 million magical moments (30 million+ units sold).  We live by our four values: engineering, hunger, magic, and connection.  The opportunity ahead of us is large, exciting, and meaningful.  We seek A+ talent to help us become the #1 online card destination in the US.

About the role

As Art Director, Licensed Product Design, your mission is to own the end-to-end merchandising, visual direction, brand governance, and process flow across the company’s externally partnered licensed properties portfolio. You will bridge creative strategy and operational execution: from assortment and new SKU planning to briefing designers, supporting illustration, communicating directly with licensors on design decisions, and collaborating with our 3D team to bring iconic characters to life in the company’s signature 3D formats.

Accountabilities

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Licensed Merchandising, Assortment & Process Ownership: Drive assortment planning, new SKU planning, and concept development sheets that align with overarching licensing strategies and design sentiment.

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Execute Assortment & SKU Planning: Lead merchandising for the licensed product line, translating licensing strategies and consumer sentiment into strategic assortment plans, new SKU planning, and comprehensive concept development sheets.

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Own & Optimize Licensing Workflows: Own the end-to-end process flow for the licensed product line and all associated licensing processes, proactively identifying and implementing workflow improvements to ensure on-time delivery.

Output metric: Growth of Licensed portfolio revenue

Output metric: 100% on-time delivery against product launch dates with; continuous reduction in concept-to-submission cycle times.

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Licensor Relations, Art Direction & Approval Governance: Enforce fidelity to licensor style guides across all product submissions, maintaining character integrity, collaborating on design adaptations directly with licensors, and driving rapid approval velocity through formal product approval systems.

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Translate Style Guides & Illustrate Concepts: Deeply understand how to work and plan with licensing partners. Internalize each licensor’s franchise style guides (character proportions, color palettes, typography, expressions, and "do's and don'ts"), provide hands-on illustration when needed, and create actionable creative briefs for product submissions and execution.

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Lead OPA Submissions: Oversee all stages of the licensor approval pipeline via OPA portals. Connect directly with licensors to collaborate on design decisions when 3D structural complexity requires creative adaptation, guiding artists to iterate rapidly within submission turnaround windows.

Output metric: First-pass licensor approval rate

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3D Slicegami™ Integration and Licensed Assets Quality Control: Partner daily with our 3D paper-engineering and production teams to ensure licensed characters, assets, and concepts translate seamlessly into the company’s 3D product formats.

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Align Licensed Assets with 3D Formats: Ensure licensed characters, assets, silhouettes, and concepts work seamlessly within our 3D sliceform product formats.

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Oversee Licensed Final Art Assets Across Product LInes: Work cross-functional with other teams (NPD, Marketing Creative, Operations) to art direct on accompanying product components and marketing materials (design sentiment cards, inserts, envelopes, packaging) related to all licensed products.

Output metric: First-pass licensor approval rate

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Team Building, Mentorship & Workflow Innovation: Hire, onboard, and direct internal and freelance designers for execution - owning and continuously improving the end-to-end licensing process flow to deliver projects on schedule.

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Hire, Onboard & Lead Talent: Recruit, hire, onboard, and mentor a specialized roster of full-time licensed product designers and freelancers working remotely and on-site, providing clear art direction to keep projects moving forward on schedule.

Output metric: Design throughput efficiency, team retention, and onboarding speed for new licensed design talent.

Qualifications

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Experience: Minimum 6–8+ years of progressive experience in illustration, graphic design, merchandising, or art direction for physical consumer goods (greeting cards, paper goods, gifts, stationery, toys/collectibles a plus), including 3+ years in an Art Director or creative leadership role.

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Licensed IP & Merchandising Expertise: Proven track record working directly with entertainment licensors (e.g., Disney, Marvel, Sanrio, Universal, music estates, sports leagues), executing assortment and SKU planning, collaborating on design decisions with partners, and managing multi-stage approvals through Online Product Approval (OPA) systems.

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Art Direction & Illustration Craft: Strong hands-on illustration skills and exceptional command of character design, composition, typography, color theory, and spatial storytelling. Versatile aesthetic sensibility capable of adapting across diverse licensor properties.

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Team & Process Leadership: Demonstrated experience owning end-to-end creative process flows, driving process improvements, and hiring, onboarding, and managing internal designers and external freelancers.

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Required — Tools & Software

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Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign).

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Working knowledge of Procreate or comparable digital painting tools.

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Fluency in Google Workspace, Figma, Slack.

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Strong Plus — 3D CAD & Automation

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Working familiarity with Rhino 3D or AutoCAD for reviewing 3D sliceform geometry with paper engineers.

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Hands-on experience with Photoshop automation (scripting, variable-data templates).

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Feedback & Collaboration: Clear, confident English communicator (written and verbal) who writes unambiguous creative briefs, presents and defends creative choices persuasively to licensors, and collaborates seamlessly across illustrators and 3D engineers.

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Attention to Detail: Obsessive quality control over layered production files, character proportions, typography, SKU planning sheets, and physical samples prior to mass production.

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Portfolio: Required portfolio demonstrating production-ready physical products- must include examples of licensed IP applications, character-driven merchandising, or dimensional/print product handoffs to a factory or printer.

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Education: Bachelor’s degree (BFA/BA) in Illustration, Graphic Design, Industrial/Product Design, Visual Communications, Animation, or equivalent practical experience.

The company Values

Engineering: Curiosity to discover how the world works

Hunger: Desire to take on more than is expected

Magic: Delivering unexpected experiences

Connection: Building relationships with each other

The company Operating Philosophies

A+ talent loves working with A+ talent.  A+ talent delivers 10x outcomes.

Growth mindset.  We believe people develop over time, that capability increases through belief and hard work.  Most increases in productivity come from leveling up and applying more leverage and focus over time rather than by applying more resources or hours.

The team I’m on is more important than the team I lead. From Patrick Lencioni’s “The Advantage”: leaders need to put their working team’s objectives ahead of the objectives of the team they themselves lead for an organization to be effective.

Executive leadership team commitments: We value our time together, Create a safe space, Get everything on the table, Make clean agreements, Set the standard.