Senior Designer

Company Overview

Guy Harvey is a leading performance fishing and coastal lifestyle brand inspired by legendary marine artist, scientist, and conservationist Dr. Guy Harvey. We create innovative apparel that connects consumers with life on the water while supporting ocean conservation around the world.

Job Summary

The Senior Designer will lead the creative vision for global line assigned product categories, translating brand strategy, consumer insights, and market trends into compelling collections. This role blends creativity, technical expertise, and commercial acumen to deliver innovative products that drive growth across wholesale, retail, and e-commerce channels.

The ideal candidate has 7–10 years of experience in outdoor, fishing, performance, or premium lifestyle apparel.

This is a hybrid role with 1 day work from home.  

Responsibilities and Duties

• Lead creative trend research across color, silhouette, print, pattern, and consumer shifts using forecasting platforms, retail research, runway, and in-store shopping.
• Translate brand strategy into commercially viable product direction across men's, women's, kids, graphics, performance, headwear, swim, bottoms, and layering

• Develop cohesive seasonal concepts, mood boards, color stories, key item direction, and product stories aligned with brand identity and business needs.

• Manage product creation from concept through production hands – on through entire product development process.
• Partner with merchandising to build balanced assortments; analyze marketplace, consumer, and competitive trends to identify new opportunities.
• Collaborate with sales and marketing to create compelling product stories and ensure the products technical features and benefits are communicated to marketing team.
• Drive innovation in fabrics; UPF, cooling, quick-dry, stretch, recycled and sustainable fabrics.
• Work with sourcing and technical teams to achieve quality, fit, and cost objectives, delivering product margin goals.

• Create and deliver brand presentations for key national accounts and specialty accounts, including travel to accounts as needed.
• Attend, support setup, and present the brand and seasonal line at key trade shows including ICAST and Surf Expo.
• Serve as the primary point of contact with Guy Harvey and the Guy Harvey Corporate team for artwork requests, seasonal art needs, and seasonal line reviews.
• Ensure product, art direction, and seasonal concepts align with Guy Harvey corporate brand standards, licensing requirements, and approved artwork rules.
• Present the full seasonal line, seasonal direction, and key product concepts to the sales team each season.
• Lead post sell-in sales hindsight meetings to gather account feedback, identify opportunities, address needs, and inform future brand growth.
• Analyze sales data and customer feedback to build on successes, correct weaknesses, and guide future assortment, graphic, and category decisions.
• Oversee graphic direction for the full line, including trend research, concept briefing, SKU allocation, edits, corporate art-rule adherence, and final production consistency.
• Lead the creation of seasonal catalogs, including product storytelling, catalog copy direction, garment copy, performance platform naming, and legal sign-off coordination.
• Oversee AI lifestyle image creation, 3D fashion CAD creation, and digital tools that support seasonal selling, innovation, and account presentations.
• Lead final approvals for fabric development, lab dips, development artwork, sales samples, fit samples, production PP samples, final production artwork, and production readiness.
• Work closely with Sourcing to solve development and production challenges while advocating for design integrity and commercial viability.
• Manage sample iteration and approvals to keep development timelines on track and ensure samples reflect design intent.
• Support the full GTM brand calendar execution from concept to consumer, balancing multiple seasons at different stages of development.
• Lead, manage, and develop the Design, Merchandising, and Graphics team, ensuring each team member is clear on priorities, ownership, deadlines, and expectations.

Qualifications and Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Fashion Design or related discipline.
• 7–10 years of apparel design experience.
• Background with premium outdoor, fishing, active, or lifestyle brands.
• Strong understanding of product development, fabrics, garment construction, fit, print development, and product commercialization. Factory knowledge is a plus.
• Experience managing multiple product calendars and working with international sourcing partners.

Technical Expertise

• Expert in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop; strong PLM experience; advanced knowledge of fabrics, trims, print engineering, garment construction, tech packs, and Microsoft Office.

• Leverage AI powered creative tools to accelerate concept development, generate visual inspiration, explore colorways and print variations, create presentation materials and improve workflow efficiency.
• Evaluate and apply emerging AI technologies to enhance creativity productivity, and speed to market while maintaining brand integrity and design quality.
• Understand how to AI tools strategically to become faster, more efficient and more  innovative product developer.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic thinker
• Consumer-focused
• Innovative and curious
• Collaborative influencer
• Strong communicator and presenter
• Decisive and accountable
• Coaches and develops talent
• Thrives in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment

Travel & Physical Requirements

Ability to travel domestically and internationally (approximately 25%) for factory visits, customer meetings, market research, and trade shows. Ability to review samples, fabrics, colors, and trims with precision and occasionally lift up to 25 pounds.

Benefits and Perks

Join a passionate team creating authentic outdoor products inspired by adventure, fishing, and conservation. This role offers the opportunity to influence one of the industry's most recognizable fishing apparel brands while collaborating with talented teams across design, merchandising, sourcing, and sales.

• Competitive Pay – We believe in rewarding success and showing our employees just how much they’re valued in a variety of different ways, including compensation.
• Health and Wellness – There’s nothing basic about our comprehensive health and wellness programs and offerings. While at work and t play, we aim to support a healthy lifestyle.
• Time away from work – Sometimes we need time away to be with family, enjoy our hobbies, focus on our health or just simply recharge.  We are committed to helping out employees create a work-life harmony!
• Growth and Development – We are constantly seeking to offer opportunities and support for personal and professional development.
• Financial planning and wellbeing – No matter what financial goals our employees have set, we want to help them get there.  We offer access to benefits, programs and education to help our employees to protect income, pay for expenses and invest in the future.  Including a generous 401(k) match!