Our Proprietary Brands team focuses on building brands that are exclusive to PetSmart and that pet parents and pets love. Our team partners with product development, merchandising, product design, product integrity and global sourcing to bring the brand essence to life in product form.

About the Job

We are looking for a dynamic creative leader to join our PetSmart Proprietary Brand in-house Creative Studio team that is passionate about inspiring others and developing meaningful packaging design solutions. The ideal candidate has proven experience leading teams of creatives including Art Directors, Designers, Copywriters and Production Artists as well as leading packaging branding development with Agencies. This work requires an experienced creative professional that is a conceptual and strategic thinker who confidently leads the team to tackle a brief from beginning to end. Proven ability to deliver strong concepts is a must. The ideal candidate has a strong level of initiative, the ability to influence and manage multiple large-scale projects and deadlines simultaneously in a fast-paced retail environment.

Through an amazing portfolio – the candidate must be able to demonstrate leadership in developing brand stories, staying on top of trend, art directing photoshoots, delivering against an established brand architecture and guiding a team to deliver excellent work. Ability to clearly articulate creative concepts to various cross-functional partners and provide a persuasive POV for what is right for the brand is a must.

Must be flexible and optimistic, possess a high level of organizational skills and the ability to work with the broader Creative team to continuously improve the Proprietary Brand packaging process, lead budget management and the management of creative content.

In addition, this candidate has a high level of accountability, will create and build strong cross-functional partnerships across the organization to learn and understand interdependencies within the organization.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities include managing Art Directors, Designers, Copywriters and potentially Production Designers. Maintains creative oversight of the entire creative process from beginning to end, ensuring on-strategy creative concepting through to consistent rollout of production mechanicals for all SKUs; maintaining brand consistency across all materials. This role also has responsibility for playing a lead role of driving the development of timelines with design team members and cross-functional partners and resolving problems.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Directs a high-performing, customer-centric team through coaching, mentoring, talent management, and succession planning. Continually monitors team workload and timelines to ensure projects are on track and resources are strategically allocated for positive workflow. Proactively communicates recommendations to reallocate resources as needed.
• Lead and inspire a team of Designers, Art Directors, Copywriters and Production Designers to develop compelling, on-strategy design solutions for PetSmart’s Proprietary Brands from concept/ideation through to delivery of finalized artwork mechanicals.
• This role is specific to packaging but will work cross-functionally to advice on all aspects of a brand beyond packaging, including advertising, promotions, social media, merchandising and environmental as needed.
• Must understand how to build design systems that bring to life an established brand architecture, applying the appropriate level of unification and/or differentiation across the brands as appropriate.
• Fosters an engaging work environment, where sharing ideas is valued. This leader actively problem solves to remove roadblocks for the team and lead initiatives with effectiveness; coaching the team to reach their fullest potential.
• Create engaging and thoughtful presentations. Has the ability to clearly articulate fresh, exciting and creative ideas to influence at various levels and to cross-functional teams.
• Collaborates well with all creative team members as well as all cross-functional partners Brand Managers, Merchandising, Product Design team, Operations Managers, Photographers, Copywriters.
• Must be organized and able to manage packaging budget inputs.
• Ensures that all proprietary Brand packaging conforms to U.S. and Canadian packaging regulations, as well as brand standards and guidelines across various pack sizes and forms.
• Maintains a high level of package design related knowledge, including design systems development, sharing current trends (package design expression, color, type, etc), development methods, processes and best practices
• Ability to think on your feet, share creative ideas, amend or revise designs based on feedback with a professional and positive attitude.
• Thorough understanding of printing and prepress processes to bring the design to life.

SKILLS REQUIRED

• Possess strong problem-solving and high-level conceptual skills.
• Proven communication and presentation skills.
• Must be motivated, flexible, detail-oriented, with strong organizational and team skills.
• Possess strong design aesthetics with type, color and page layout design.
• Proven photography art direction; experience on-set
• Brand identity development experience
• Maintain technical knowledge of file preparation and procedures.
• Understanding of how to work with a brand architecture

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design or related field.

• 10+ years of direct experience with CPG or retail package design.

• 5+ Years management/cross-functional leadership experience including excellent communication, motivational and problem-solving skills.

SCOPE OF RESPONSIBILITY

This role is a leadership position and requires the candidate to maintain an energetic, positive and inspiring environment where creatives thrive. Active problem-solving is a must to remove roadblocks and ensure the creative work and projects move forward in an efficient manner. This role requires constant oversight of resources to ensure proper allocation and balance of workload amongst team members. Requires presentation of creative work to various levels across the organization. Duties and tasks in a fast-paced retail environment are frequently non-routine and are varied and may be somewhat complex. Resolves most questions and problems and refers some complex issues to higher levels. Works under minimal supervision. This role will mentor, teach and coach more junior individuals to deliver their best work.

MAJOR CHALLENGES

The ideal candidate must be able to work in a fast-paced retail environment on multiple projects with changing deadlines and priorities. The ability to gather information from and communication with cross-functional partners to make clarity to project objectives and requirements is essential. This position requires the individual to be self-motivated, detail-driven and able to make decisions as needed to keep projects on track.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Fluent in Adobe creative cloud (In-Design, Photoshop, Illustrator).
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office

PHYSICAL DEMANDS and WORK ENVIRONMENT

The physical demands and work environment are characteristic of those found in a typical office environment. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable those with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• Must be able to sit for extended periods of time.
• Must be able to work in busy collaborative cubical environment.

About the Culture

Our home office offers outstanding amenities in a fun and rewarding workplace including:

• Pet friendly environment, bring your pets to work!
• A work-life balance and family events such as movie nights, art events and holiday festivals
• “Top Dog” gym with equipment, fitness classes, massage therapists and personal trainers
• “Sit & Stay” Café serving fresh breakfast and lunch options
• Starbucks cart—productivity at its finest!
• “Lil’ Paws” learning center and onsite daycare facility
• Volunteer events with PetSmart Charities
• Learn more about #LifeAtPetSmart here: https://www.lifeatpetsmart.com/life-at-petsmart/
• Check out Associate stories and share in some celebrations at PetSmart: https://www.blog.lifeatpetsmart.com/
• Explore PetSmart Benefits here: https://benefits.petsmart.com/