Senior Packaging Designer – Contract (Beauty)
Schedule: 40 hours/week Duration: Ongoing contract Pay: $45–$50/hour
Location: Hybrid – 3 days/week on-site in New York, NY (10022) Start: ASAP
A fast-growing client in the beauty and personal care space is seeking a Freelance Senior Packaging Designer to lead innovative, trend-driven packaging across multiple product lines. This role combines hands-on design, technical packaging expertise, and cross-functional collaboration to create disruptive, cost-efficient solutions that resonate with Gen Z and Gen Alpha while meeting sustainability, manufacturing, and business requirements.
Responsibilities
- Concept, design, and refine primary and secondary packaging that is visually distinctive, technically precise, and on-brand.
- Develop cost-conscious packaging that balances aesthetics, performance, manufacturability, and margin needs.
- Translate briefs into detailed concepts, dielines, mockups, and production-ready files.
- Use knowledge of beauty and pop culture trends to create “thumb-stopping” packaging, kits, collaborations, and social-first moments.
- Apply strong typography, layout, and hierarchy to ensure packaging is both highly branded and easy to shop in-store and online.
- Partner with Packaging Development, Product, Operations, and Creative teams to solve design and engineering challenges.
- Collaborate with suppliers and manufacturers to validate feasibility, troubleshoot, and optimize for mass production.
- Inform material choices, finishes, and construction with understanding of plastics, glass molding, and component manufacturing.
- Leverage various printing methods (offset, flexo, screen, hot stamp, specialty coatings) for high-impact visuals.
- Identify productivity opportunities through material optimization, component harmonization, and design efficiencies.
- Advance sustainability by recommending lower-impact materials, fewer components, PCR use, and recyclable/refillable solutions.
- Maintain consistency across lines and markets by aligning with internal packaging systems and design principles.
- Prepare clear specs, mockups, and presentation decks for reviews and leadership approvals.
- Contribute to a collaborative, growth-minded culture and share best practices with the broader team.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Packaging Design, or related field.
- 7+ years of professional experience in a high-volume, deadline-driven environment (beauty, fashion, technology, or similar consumer categories).
- Portfolio showcasing best-in-class packaging for beauty and/or closely related consumer products.
- Extensive packaging design experience with a strong understanding of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers and digital culture.
- Experience partnering with digital, e-commerce, and/or marketing teams to ensure packaging translates effectively online.
- Strong typography, layout, and visual storytelling skills.
- Comfortable working in a highly collaborative, cross-functional, iterative environment.
- Up to date on fashion, beauty, design, and digital trends.
- Proficiency in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.
If you meet the above requirements and are available to start quickly, please apply with your resume and a link to your packaging portfolio.
