Senior Graphic Designer / Creative Manager

Job Title: Senior Graphic Designer / Creative Manager

Location: Elkhart, IN

Company: Nomadic Innovations

Employment Type: Full-Time

Required: Portfolio submission is required before Interview

About Nomadic Innovations

Nomadic Innovations is a leader in cutting-edge recreational vehicle technologies, specializing in high-performance, energy-efficient climate and comfort systems engineered for life on the road. Our products are designed to elevate comfort, durability, and sustainability for RV enthusiasts and off-grid adventurers. We are a fast-paced, engineering-driven company focused on building innovative solutions for mobile living.

Position Overview

This is a senior, hands-on leadership role.

You will be:

• The senior-most design voice in the company
• The day-to-day leader of our graphics department (internal + freelancers)
• The person responsible for ensuring everything we ship—digital or physical—looks premium, is on-brand, and is technically correct and production-ready

You’ll work closely with marketing, product, sales, operations, and support to turn business and technical needs into clear, believable visuals that actually ship: packaging, labels, manuals, product-page graphics, trade show assets, sales materials, social content, and email & ad creative.

This is not “take orders and make things pretty.” This is own the process from brief → concept → execution → vendor handoff → delivered asset.

Key Responsibilities1. Brand & Creative Direction

• Own and evolve the visual language for Nomadic Innovations and all sub-brands (Cooling, Awnings, Controls/Helix).
• Translate product strategy, technical features, and marketing objectives into practical, effective visual assets: hero imagery, feature callouts, diagrams, wiring/system overviews, comparison charts, UI-like overlays, icons, and infographics.
• Maintain a consistent, premium look across web, print, packaging, trade show, and social, even when multiple designers/freelancers are involved.

2. Team Leadership & Department Management

• Lead the graphics department day-to-day:
• Assign work and manage workloads
• Set priorities based on business impact
• Review and approve output
• Ensure deadlines are met
• Mentor and upskill existing team members:
• Provide clear, actionable feedback
• Teach best practices for print and digital
• Help junior designers grow toward senior-level standards
• Art-direct and coordinate freelancers/contractors:
• Write proper briefs
• Integrate their work into our overall system
• Hold them to Nomadic’s standards
• Partner with leadership to prioritize design work against business goals. You’re not just taking tickets; you’re helping decide what gets done first and why.

3. Production Design (Print, Packaging, Manuals)

Design and prepare print-ready files for:

• Product packaging (boxes, sleeves, labels, inserts, multi-panel layouts, dielines)
• Product manuals, quick-start guides, and technical documentation
• Trade show booths, banners, signage, and large-format graphics
• Flyers, sell sheets, dealer/distributor materials, and in-box collateral
• Work confidently with:
• Dielines, bleeds, trim, safe areas, fold lines
• CMYK vs RGB, spot colors, color management and consistency
• Resolution, trapping, overprint, large format requirements
• Communicate directly with printers and packaging vendors, review proofs, and catch technical or layout issues before they turn into expensive mistakes.
• Design with budgets and constraints in mind:
• Choose appropriate finishes and formats
• Reuse/adapt existing components where possible
• Balance aesthetics with cost-effective production

4. Digital Design (Web, Email, Ads, Social)

• Create web and digital assets for:
• Shopify product pages and landing sections (hero images, feature blocks, comparison layouts, diagrams, lifestyle overlays)
• Email campaigns and flows (hero graphics, modular components, diagrams)
• Paid ads (Meta, Google, YouTube—static and simple motion/loop-based creatives)
• Social media (static posts, carousels, stories, evergreen assets, templates)
• Design with performance and usability in mind:
• Readable type and layout on mobile and desktop
• Optimized export pipeline (sizes, file formats, retina considerations, load times)
• Clarity of message and hierarchy—especially for highly technical products

5. Process & Systems

• Design and implement repeatable workflows for recurring asset types:
• Product launch packs
• Packaging lines and label sets
• Manual / documentation templates
• Show & event graphics
• Social & email content systems
• Define what a good creative brief looks like and teach internal teams how to submit requests that include objectives, audience, specs, deadlines, and constraints.
• Create and maintain a lightweight but effective design system:
• Shared components (icons, UI-style elements, diagrams, patterns)
• Layout templates (for flyers, spec sheets, manual pages, web modules, email sections)
• Updated brand guidelines & usage rules (color, type, spacing, imagery)
• Establish file organization and naming conventions so assets are findable, reusable, and safe from “wrong version” mistakes.

6. Quality Control & Brand Consistency

• Act as the final quality gate for graphics:
• Check technical correctness (bleeds, color, resolution, formats)
• Check brand alignment (type, color, hierarchy, tone)
• Check legibility and clarity for technical content
• Ensure visual consistency across deliverables from multiple contributors—everything should look like it came from the same brand family.

7. Adaptability, Budgets & Problem Solving

• Operate in a fast-moving, changing environment
• Products evolve
• Specs change
• Shows and campaigns pop up on shorter timelines
• Work within tight budgets and real deadlines:
• Know when to build in-house vs outsource
• Know when “clean and done” beats “perfect and late”
• Make smart tradeoffs without compromising critical quality
• Take ambiguous or incomplete input and ask the right questions to get to a clear brief and a realistic plan.

Required Experience & Skills

We are deliberately setting a high bar. Please do not apply if you do not meet most of these criteria.

Experience

• 5–8+ years of professional experience as a graphic designer, with at least 2–3 years in a senior / lead / manager capacity.
• Demonstrated history of shipping production-grade work:
• Packaging and labels
• Manuals / multi-page documents
• Print collateral and trade show graphics
• Web and digital campaign assets
• Experience managing multiple concurrent projects end-to-end (brief → concept → revisions → production).
• Experience leading or managing other designers and/or freelancers (formal or de facto).

Technical Skills

• Expert-level Adobe Creative Cloud, especially:
• Illustrator – logos, icons, vector assets, packaging, dielines
• Photoshop – composites, retouching, product & lifestyle imagery
• InDesign – manuals, brochures, spec sheets, catalogs
• Strong, practical understanding of print production:
• CMYK vs RGB, spot colors, color profiles
• Bleeds, trim, safe zones, resolution requirements
• Packaging, label, and large-format printing
• Proof review and press/production communication
• Solid digital design skills:
• Designing for Shopify product pages and simple landing layouts
• Preparing web-ready assets (sizes, compression, responsive considerations)
• Creating ad, email, and social creative for performance marketing
• Familiarity with Figma or similar layout/UX tools (or willingness to adopt) for planning systems, components, and page structures.

Conceptual, Communication & Leadership Skills

• Strong visual storytelling ability: can take complex technical or system-based information and present it in a clear, visual way.
• Excellent typography and layout skills: hierarchy, spacing, rhythm, especially with dense technical content.
• Clear written and verbal communicator: can explain design decisions to non-designers and document standards for others to follow.
• Proven ability to lead, coach, and elevate other designers while maintaining high standards and realistic expectations.

Aesthetic & Brand Fit

We want someone who understands this space and aesthetic:

• You know the difference between premium, real-world product storytelling and loud, shouty automotive “SALE!!!” creative. This is not a dealership flyer brand.
• You’re comfortable creating work that feels authentic to a community (vanlife, overland, RV, builders, tech-forward off-grid users)—real rigs, real environments, believable use.
• You know how to use textures, materials, and overlays (metal, rubber, fabrics, topo lines, UI grids, etc.) in a modern, restrained way—never cheesy, overdone, or gimmicky.
• You can make technically advanced products look trustworthy, aspirational, and grounded, not cartoonish or overhyped.

Mindset & Non-Negotiables

We’re looking for someone who:

• Treats design as problem-solving in service of the product and customer, not just decoration.
• Is detail-obsessed about production quality but realistic about deadlines and constraints.
• Enjoys building systems, standards, and templates, not just one-off hero shots.
• Is comfortable with direct feedback and can give it in a constructive way.
• Can handle ambiguity and moving targets without melting down.
• Has low ego, high ownership—you take responsibility for the work, the process, and the outcome.
• Is excited to take an existing team and raise the bar, not replace everyone; you lift people up and bring them along.

What Success Looks Like

Within 90 days, you will:

• Audit our current visual assets (web, packaging, manuals, print, social) and present a concise “state of the visuals” with prioritized improvements.
• Deliver several end-to-end projects (e.g., packaging or label update, one print piece, one digital campaign asset) that go all the way to printer or publish without technical issues.
• Establish basic but effective file organization and naming conventions for the graphics team.
• Implement a clear request → design → review → delivery process that reduces chaos and uncertainty.

Within 6–12 months, you will:

• Have a lightweight design system and asset library in place that speeds up work and keeps everything on-brand.
• Have the graphics team (internal + freelance) consistently shipping work to your standard with less hand-holding.
• Have led the visual side of at least one major product or brand initiative (new product launch, packaging line, trade show presence, or significant web refresh).
• Be seen internally as the person who can reliably turn complex, shifting requirements into clean, premium, production-ready visuals on time and within budget.

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Nice-to-Have (Bonus) Experience

• Experience in automotive, overland, RV, industrial, or hardware brands.
• Experience directing product photography (shot lists, angles, environments, coordination with photographers).
• Basic motion graphics skills (After Effects or similar) for simple explainers, loops, or UI-style animations.
• Experience working with engineering and technical teams to visualize system behavior, wiring, diagnostics, or app flows.

Benefits

• Health insurance

• Dental insurance

• Vision insurance

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $60,000.00 - $75,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person