On - Senior Specialist – Color Designer Performance All Day - Zürich

Team for Career Site

Product Design

In short

Color has the power to shape our thoughts, moods, and emotions, influencing us both physiologically and psychologically. As a Color Designer at On, you play a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s identity through the strategic use of color. This position involves crafting compelling color stories that resonate with consumers, aligning with brand values, and driving engagement across product ranges. Color Designers are storytellers, working collaboratively with various teams to create cohesive color proposals that cater to different product categories, consumer needs, and market trends. They maintain a deep understanding of industry trends, consumer behavior, and emerging demands, and ensure seamless integration of color across all product categories, from apparel to footwear.

Your mission

– Consumer focused color work – Strategize the use of color to evoke emotional connections, align with brand identity, drive consumer engagement and ensure commerciality
– Great understanding of our distribution, channels and tiering – Maintain a deep understanding of consumer preferences, market trends, and competitive landscape across color design domains
– Color proposal creation in alignment with all categories – Create cohesive color stories/proposals that translate across various product ranges to create head to toe moments for our consumer and align expression across at retail
– Color CAD creation
– Color palette built – Develop color palettes that pull from the CD color umbrella as well as create narratives tailored to specific product categories, consumer demographics and market needs.
– Connection to material designer and FTW designers in order to collaborate on product creation from start to finish
– Connection to Apparel Color Design in order to ensure that color expresses as a total brand
– Continuously monitor industry color trends, consumer behavior, and emerging market demands across color
– Work closely with Design, Development, Product Strategy, and Merchandising teams to align color strategies with overall product goals and brand initiatives
– Present color design proposals, concepts, and narratives in compelling ways to gain buy-in from internal stakeholders and external partners, ensuring seamless integration of color
– Foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment, encouraging creative exchange and cross-disciplinary collaboration
– Keep up to date with color trends—how colors are combined, how often they’re used, and how they create impact in art, culture, and fashion to tell stories and convey emotions
– Stay knowledgeable about contemporary art and new artists, paying attention to how they use color in their work
– Regularly build and maintain a comprehensive color inspiration library that includes colors, combinations, patterns, textures, designs, mood images, materials, and shapes, both digitally and physically

Your story

– Bachelor’s degree in Color Sciences or related field
– 4+ years of experience in the footwear industry with a focus on color design
– Strong understanding of merchandising methodologies, strategies and the analysis of selling data and the role that color plays within these
– Solid understanding of color science processes as it relates to footwear materials, with a preference towards performance footwear
– Proactive and able to thrive in a fast-paced environment, with a demonstrated ability to solve complex challenges
– You possess proficiency in Pantone and other color systems as well as design tools such as: Adobe Creative Suite, PLM, etc
– Passionate about sustainability and experience in integrating sustainable practices into color creation and materials sourcing
– Strong understanding of competitor brands and distribution channels, with a knack for gaining insights that drive product differentiation
– Fluent in English, written and spoken, any other language would be a plus

Meet the team

Our Color and Materials Team plays a pivotal role in shaping the visual identity and aesthetic appeal of our products across all categories. Comprising talented professionals with diverse backgrounds in color theory and material science, our team collaborates seamlessly to deliver innovative and trend-setting designs that resonate with our consumers and elevate our brand presence in the market. In essence, our Color and Material Design Teams serve as the creative powerhouse pulling together the past, present and future perspectives to drive the visual and tactile experience of our products. Through a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach, we craft compelling color and material design solutions that captivate consumers, differentiate our brand, and inspire lasting connections in the competitive marketplace.

This role requires someone with a balance of creative vision, technical expertise, and the ability to collaborate seamlessly across different teams. If you are passionate about color design in footwear and want to help shape the future of product aesthetics, we’d love to hear from you!