Senior Brand Designer

Tolan•San Francisco, CA

1d•$150,000 - $180,000

About The Position

Tolan is building personal AI that helps people think, reflect, and take action in their real lives. Over the last year, we’ve grown to more than 130,000 paying users, with industry-leading metrics across engagement, retention, and customer NPS. We’ve raised from some of the world’s leading AI investors, including Khosla Ventures, Lachy Groom, Homebrew, Mike Krieger, and others. You'll be our first brand designer, and for a while, our only one. Tolan's brand has personality. It's playful, warm, a bit offbeat, and people respond to it. So far it's come from external partners working alongside the team, without anyone fully devoted to it day to day. Your job is to be that person: responsible for creating great work, and building scalable systems around that work. You’ll also raise the level of craft across everything we put out, and figure out what a more elevated version of Tolan looks like over time, while still remaining true to our roots. This person should have a considered view on what happens to that world as the brand matures: what gets refined, what gets kept as-is, what gets used more sparingly, and what a system built around it should look like at a higher level of craft. This role reports to our Head of Brand, Court Klein and will also work closely with our founders.

Requirements

Strong portfolio that demonstrates depth, taste, and impact. What you’ve built has driven products, teams, and entire companies forward.
Range. Fast-turn social assets and a launch campaign should both be within reach, at the same level of care.
AI-Forward. You’ll have an unlimited token budget to leverage the latest tools, but your work still needs to be distinctly human.
Autonomy and ability to navigate ambiguity. You can take a vague ask and quickly ship high quality work without checking in ad nauseam.
Comfort with editorial and long-form layout. A meaningful share of our work lives there.
Expert in brand systems. You can build frameworks that empower diverse teams to produce consistent work at scale.
Roughly 4 - 6 years of brand design experience, with a balanced track record of tactical and strategic work.

Nice To Haves

You’ve worked as the main brand designer at a smaller company, or the second or third designer on a larger team with a high craft bar.
Agency experience is a plus, and we’re also open to hiring direct from agency.
Bonus points for experience in VC-backed CPG and/or Consumer Tech.
We care more about what you've made than where you made it.

Responsibilities

Own and evolve the brand identity and standards, including visual language, typography, color, illustration and motion, ensuring it scales gracefully across every touchpoint
Create guidelines that let non-designers on the team produce decent work on their own
Develop campaign concepts, from the initial idea through to the finished assets
Craft flagship reports, whitepapers, and long-form editorial where hierarchy and typography carry the weight
Oversee marketing site design across new pages, campaigns, and refreshes
Finding and directing outside specialists (illustration, motion, photo, print) when a project calls for it
Build scalable design systems and templates that can be executed quickly without sacrificing brand quality