Athletics Footwear Designer - 3+ years of Experience

Position Overview:

Sneaker heads, we're looking for you! The Athletics Footwear Designer will be the lead designer for the Athletic categories at Payless ShoeSource, with a heavy emphasis on designing for the Champion brand. In this role you will work independently to combine trends, customer preferences and market intelligence to help our merchandising team deliver a compelling product assortment that excites our customer and meets company sales and margin objectives. This position requires a highly creative thinker who can spot trends and develop new ideas. You will be responsible for designing up to 5 different styles per season with a heavy focus on coloring, detailing and uppers. 

Job Responsibilities:

• Design & execute exclusive brands, i.e. Champion, as a full lifecycle brand, including all relevant classifications
• Set strategic trend, material and detail direction for Athletics category
• Effectively communicate how the translate trends into categories, lifestyles and brands with internal and external stakeholders
• Collaborates with merchandising to execute designs against seasonal line plans
• Provide input to merchandising translating trends into the line building process throughout the end to end process
• Collaborate with the product development team to create detailed design tech packages that enable the factories to execute

Qualifications:

• A 4 year degree, preferable in Industrial Design or Accessories Design with Footwear concentration
• 3+ years of increasing responsibility in creative, footwear/accessory design, with at least 1 year experience in a design office setting
• Highly creative thinker who can spot trends and develop ideas that will impact the product direction and relevance of product offering
• Dynamic, creative style that can be characterized as hands-on and results-oriented
• Highly artistic, able to render 2D from conceptual directives
• Proficient in all Adobe platforms including Illustrator and Photoshop
• Highly organized and able to adapt quickly to changing priorities
• Ability to build effective partnerships with internal and external stakeholders
• Ability to work across functional areas as an effective communicator and team player
• Ability to travel as needed to home office, US markets and abroad