Associate Concept Artist

We're looking for an Associate Merchandise Concept Designer to join our Merchandise team in Austin, TX. This is a hands-on role for a designer who wants to own ideas from the blank page all the way to the artwork that our vendors use as a blueprint. You'll take an assigned product drops and develop it into real product concepts, sketching a genuine range of directions, refining the ones that land, and then building the final, production-usable artwork behind them.

What You Will Do

You'll own defined portions of Aphmau merchandise collections end to end, research and mood boards, concept sketch ideation, and final artwork execution for your assigned products or categories. You'll develop multiple product-sketch directions, refine thumbnails into concept art, identify hero pieces, and suggest category, price point, production feasibility, and sales channel.

Why It Might Be a Fit

If you've ever wanted your design work to reach an audience of this size, and you like the idea of a fandom noticing the small details you got right, this is that job. You'll work with moderate oversight, which means you're trusted to own your assignments and resolve routine creative problems to meet production deadlines.

Requirements

• 2–4 years of merchandise, consumer product, or character-based design experience
• A portfolio showing the full progression from research and ideation through finished, production-usable artwork
• Strong Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop skills
• Working knowledge of brand and character style guides and licensed product requirements
• Ability to manage several concurrent assignments against a development calendar and consistently hit dates
• Strong character drawing fundamentals — proportion, expression, and consistency to an established model
• Comfort giving and receiving direct creative critique, and the ability to separate feedback on the work from feedback on you
• Clear communication: you can explain why a concept works commercially, not just why you like it
• Discipline with file organization, naming conventions, and version control

Benefits

• Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision health benefits
• 401(k) contribution
• Flexible time off
• Lunch, snacks and drinks provided in the office
• Pets in the office once a month
• Onsite fitness center
• Learning Stipend
• Relocation assistance for those coming from outside Austin