Designer II, Footwear Innovation

The ASICS Creation Center, LLC is ASICS Corporation’s product creation office based in Boston, MA. This organization's focus is on taking innovation and product creations to new heights. The team sits across the following areas: Innovation, Performance Running, Sportstyle and Core Performance Sports.

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• No supervisory responsibilities.

• Push the boundaries of design language, form, function and materials while maintaining performance goals and developing manufacturability.
• Creates sketches, rough prototypes, detailed tech packs, CAD files, and presentations to convey concept intents and works with development counterparts to provide necessary information to make and test them.
• Connect with the consumer, internal wear testing, and internal sports research lab, to gather insights and use these to ideate and conceptualize new high performance footear constructions and technologies.
• Utilize knowledge of footwear, design, human performance, and manufacturing to propose new ways to look at our standards and develop new perspectives and the typical high performance footwear problems.
• Provide design exploration for innovation projects.
• Support and execute the global footwear innovation strategy, help identifying and driving key design opportunities linked to consumer, enterprise and business goals.
• Help find and dupport innovation partnerships beyond the design function (Research, Marketing, Engineering, Development, etc.)
• Adhere to footwear innovation go-to-market deadlines, including innovation reviews and mainline design reviews.
• Articulate important project updates and complex information to stakeholders effectively.
• Ensure cross-functional partners have up-to-date information on each project and facilitate effective collaborations.

• Good understanding of footwear design, construction and production.
• Highly creative, curious, and passionate about innovation.
• Ability to work through and manage ambiguity.
• Strong Problem solving skills.
• Strong sketching and ideation skills.
• Strong presentation skills.
• Strong 2D cad and tech packaging skills.
• 3d modeling, rendering, and 3D printing skills are a plus.
• Knowledge and experience with sustainable design and manufacturing are a plus.
• Integrates handcarft and making as part of the creative process.
• Familiar with footwear product manufacturing processes including materials/fabrics, molding, etc.
• Proefficient with Adobe Creative Cloud (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop)
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
• Able to travel up to 20% of the time domestically and internationally.

• High competency in written communication. Experience and patience when communicating with international partners who utilize english as a second language.
• Comfortable working with international parent company structures, cultures and business processes. Demonstrates a competency of understanding how to get things done in a highly matrixed organization.
• Ability to sometimes shift work schedule to accommodate international calls with key business partners.
• Demonstrates comfort working in a fast-paced environment, that at times will have ambiguity.
• Consumer Focus.
• Innovation & Creativity.
• Collaboration & Mutual Respect.
• Self starter.
• Results Driven.

• Bachelor's degree in Design or related field. Will consider suitable combination of education, experience and training.
• At least 3 to 4 years experience designing and developing innovative footwear performance products, with experience in running. Direct Innovation experience is a plus.

• Must be able to see, hear, speak, and write clearly to communicate with employees and/or other customers.
• Manual dexterity required.