Principal Designer
Atlanta, GA
Full Time
Experienced
Overview
Brand Apart is seeking a highly skilled and visionary Principal Designer to lead creative design output— particularly for our flagship client, Trilith—while contributing across the full spectrum of our branding and experiential projects. This is a unique opportunity for a design leader who thrives on execution: a Creative Director–level thinker who still actively designs, produces, and refines creative work at the highest level.This role is central to shaping how our client brands manifest visually across digital, physical, motion, and environmental touchpoints. The Principal Designer is a cross-disciplinary powerhouse who turns sophisticated strategy into bold, world-class design systems that inspire teams and drive client success.
Essential Functions
Creative Execution & Leadership
- Develop and execute sophisticated design work across various formats:
- Digital: Live event content and graphics, websites, social content, digital campaigns
- Physical/Print: Signage, brochures, merchandise
- Environmental: Experience and event design, Installations, Employee Engagement
- Motion: Design boards, concept frames, explainers, visual storytelling
- Brand Systems: Logos, sub-brand identities, and complete visual identity systems
- Industrial Design: Visual support and mockups as needed for product, spatial, and object-based concepts
- Translate brand strategy into expressive and scalable design systems
- Generate multiple compelling design options that push creative boundaries and expand client imagination.
Trilith Focus
- Lead creative for Trilith, setting the tone and raising the bar for how the brand shows up to the world.
- Create an expanded and robust visual identity system for Trilith—complete with world- class design assets, templates, and guidelines that ensure consistency across every touchpoint.
- Build the Trilith brand that is elevated to world-class status through a cohesive, compelling, and strategically sound visual identity that reflects its ambition as a global destination for creativity, innovation, and storytelling.
- Ideate and design activations and campaigns with cultural relevance—e.g., World Cup tie-ins, global partnerships, immersive brand experiences
Strategic & Conceptual Contribution
- Participate in brand strategy, storytelling, and naming processes
- Contribute to big-picture ideation and campaign development
- Bring fresh, relevant cultural and design references to shape client narratives and creative direction
- Support pitch preparation and contribute to presentations for new business efforts
Team Collaboration & Mentorship
- Inspire and uplift fellow designers through informal mentorship, critique, and shared ideation
- Partner with the Design Manager to push team output and creative thinking
- Offer constructive feedback and guidance, elevating the quality of design across the organization (without direct management responsibility)
Culture & Agility
- Actively contribute to team brainstorms, critiques, and creative problem-solving
- Step in where needed across accounts to support the broader creative team
- Be a reliable, collaborative teammate who thrives in a fast-paced, idea-driven environment
Key Expectations for First 90 Days
- Trilith Project Accountability to: Sarah Greenwell + Lowman Harley (and G. Rutherford)
- Join weekly Brand Apart Design Team meetings and Crits (project review/critique time)
- Stay available and engaged on communications channels (Slack, email, text, etc) with the broader Design Team and strategic partners to ensure updates and feedback are provided timely
- Meet Bi-Weekly with Group CD, Creative Experiences, Ranielle Barbas
- Travel onsite to Trilith as needed for client meetings, presentations and immersion
- Join weekly Trilith Internal and Client meetings
- Collaborate regularly with Trilith Team on ongoing brand work, specifically supporting/working with other lead designer on design deliverables
Qualifications
- 10+ years of professional design experience, including leadership roles or senior-level execution
- A portfolio that demonstrates a range of high-caliber work, particularly across brand identity systems, environmental design, and large-scale brand ecosystems
- Proven ability to think strategically and conceptually, while also executing pixel-perfect desig
- Experience working on or leading branding efforts for multi-tiered organizations or conglomerates a strong plus
- Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite; familiarity with Figma, motion tools, and industrial design software is a bonus
- Outstanding communication and presentation skills
- Multi-disciplinary approach to solving client problems with proactive thinking, action, and creativity.
- A proactive, solutions-first attitude and a hunger to contribute meaningfully to a creative team
- Strong critical thinking, interpersonal skills, and verbal abilities.
- Excellent professionalism, maturity and credibility with clients and team members at Brand Apart.
- Strong emotional intelligence with both clients and BA team at large.
- Great attention to detail.
What Success Looks Like
- Delivering inspired, strategic, and high-impact design work
- Contributing leadership-level thinking and design to projects without requiring direct management of others
- Making our teams and ideas better through thoughtful collaboration and critique
- Trilith’s brand comes to life in a way that feels cohesive, elevated, and world-class across all touchpoints—from billboards and signage to digital platforms and experiential fan experiences.
- Design work across Brand Apart is elevated through your example, mentorship, and feedback. Junior designers grow stronger because of your influence.
- Clients are energized by the clarity, quality, and originality of the creative work you produce.
Our Values
Curiosity. We are fascinated by people, culture, and ideas. We ask questions (a lot of them), look for connections, and we’re always learning.Drive. We get it done. We combine passion with determination, setting and surpassing goals every day. Brilliance. We use our talent to create work that brings more color to the world, turning initial sparks into remarkable ideas and experiences.
Care. We demonstrate genuine care for one another. Putting others before yourself. We practice humility; we do great work and having a blast doing it.
Location & Work Environment
This role is based in Atlanta, GA, and follows a hybrid work model that combines in-office collaboration with remote flexibility. Candidates must be located in or willing to relocate to the Atlanta area and able to attend in-person workdays (Tuesdays/Thursdays) as required by our hybrid office policy. This role is expected to work from Trilith as needed for collaboration, meetings, presenting and immersions.About Brand Apart
Brand Apart is a creative studio dedicated to creating new, bold, and unconventional ways for people to love brands. We do the work it takes to know our clients and their customers, challenging and exploding assumptions that get in the way of new opportunities.
We are a team of designers, creators, and doers. We are passionate about telling brand stories that get noticed, create a connection, and inciting a response. In everything we do, we strive to exhibit our values of Curiosity, Drive, Brilliance and Care.
As a multi-disciplinary group, we love helping our clients deliver on customer and employee
engagement through meaningful insights, strategic ideas, and seamless implementation. We are at an exciting time of growth as an agency, as we seek to expand our portfolio of clients and build upon prior project successes.
Clients include: Chick-fil-A, The Coca-Cola Company, Trilith Studios, YMCA-USA, 29029, Spanx, Evertrain Sports Nutrition, among others.
We are based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Due to the nature of some of our event and experience work, candidates need to be available to travel 10% of the time.
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