Remote Head of Design

The Head of Design Role

The garden3d Head of Design has one mandate: nothing we put on the internet falls below an 8 out of 10. We are a house of brands - Sanctuary Computer (development), XXIX (design), Index Space (community), USB Club (digital community), and the garden3d umbrella itself - and all of them ship work into the world under our name. Working in close partnership with our founder & president Hugh Francis, this person sets the craft standard, and builds the culture that holds it.

You can be based anywhere. A lot of our people are in New York and there's some gravity here, but we already work across timezones and we would happily hire in Europe, Singapore, Chicago, or wherever you are. If you're the right person, we want to hear from you.

This role works with studio leads, designers, developers, editors, animators, photographers and clients across every garden3d vertical.

This person can move between a brand identity, a product interface, a case study and a launch film in the same week, and raise the bar on each of them.

They span all of garden3d, but their home base is XXIX. Our design studio is where the standard gets set, and where it either holds or slips, so this person runs critique there. Regular reviews. Honest and specific feedback. A shared language for why one thing is better than another, and what practically to do about it. Then they carry that same bar everywhere: to Sanctuary Computer's product and web work, to Index, to new USB Club product launches, to garden3d TK and everything we publish.

They are also how we get better people. Our work is only as good as the designers making it, so this person hunts for exceptional talent, sells them on us, and sets them up to do the best work of their careers. The ideal candidate looks at a worker-owned collective with four studios, an open P&L and clients like Google, Figma and The Nobel Prize, and sees a design practice they can propel among the best in the world.

💸 Compensation

This is a permanent leadership role. If this individual exceeds expectations in their first four months, we'll shape the permanent role together, with scope and compensation that grow as the studios and their revenue do. After a period of proven success (12 - 24 months), they become eligible to join our worker ownership program.

We start with a 4-month fraction trial contract, paid hourly between $110 - $175 p/hr pending seniority & experience. In the first few weeks of the trial, this individual will propose their own goals to define success in their trial, and present them to our leadership team for approval.

At garden3d, we believe that those who shoulder the most responsibility and create the greatest impact should be paid accordingly. This role greatly favors autonomous, competent & ambitious operators.

🔑 Must have:

• 10+ years in design, at least three of them leading a team inside a studio, agency or founder-led company
• A portfolio that proves exceptional taste: visual, typographic and narrative
• Type design and editorial design as core craft, not an occasional side interest
• Extensive client experience: presenting and defending work in front of blue-chip companies across many industries, and shaping the brand narrative their leadership repeats back
• A track record of winning design work, not only delivering it: pitching, scoping and closing new business at the top of the market
• A track record of hiring exceptional designers, and of people who got measurably better working for them
• Running critique: feedback that is specific, honest and actionable, and the ability to build a studio culture around it
• Hands-on Figma fluency. This person can make the thing, not only critique it (and will get on the tools when the need arises)
• Case study production as second nature: interviewing the team, shaping the story, art-directing the assets

🧁 Nice-to-have:

• Directing video and holding the quality bar on it: short-form for social, product and client shoots, launch films. They can brief a crew, sit in the edit, and say why a cut isn't working
• Motion, photography or editing chops of their own
• Print, publishing or book design
• Product and interface design alongside brand work
• Experience owning a company's web presence end to end
• Comfort managing several distinct brand voices in a house of brands
• Experience inside a worker-owned, open-book or otherwise unusual company
• A network in the design community: the schools, the conferences, the people worth hiring
• Experience designing for the design & engineering decision-makers at companies like our clients