Textile & Apparel Production Artist w/a sense of Humor

Shinesty•Denver, CO

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

Shinesty is seeking a detail-obsessed Textile & Apparel Production Artist to transform artwork files into precise, mill-ready production assets. This role serves as the crucial link between creative design and manufacturing. The artist will be responsible for building seamless pattern repeats, indexing color palettes, assigning accurate color standards, and creating clean, organized production CADs using standard templates. Additionally, the role involves managing the color-approval process, which includes reviewing physical lab dips, print strike-offs, and knit swatches to ensure manufacturing output matches design intent.

Requirements

Must be based in (or willing to relocate to) the Denver, CO metro area and able to work in our Denver office 3 days per week.
Advanced, expert-level mastery of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop (specifically swatch panel organization, color indexing, vector manipulation, and layered file setups).
Direct experience creating seamless repeating patterns, technical artwork setups, and mill-ready tech packs for apparel or textiles.
A trained, sharp eye for color evaluation, subtle tonal differences, and matching physical textiles to digital standards.
An obsessively technical mindset—you notice the single misaligned pixel or missing color code before anyone else does.
A collaborative, hungry team player who takes ownership of the artwork-to-approval process and pushes projects forward without waiting to be asked.
Must be able to flex in-office days when urgent shipments are inbound or vendor turnaround windows are tight — the standard 3 days/week in-office is a baseline, not a cap, and may increase during high package volume or time-sensitive approval cycles.

Nice To Haves

Experience working directly with overseas factories and mills (apparel, swim, or sock/hosiery experience is a major plus).
Knowledge of textile printing methods (sublimation, wet print, screen print) and knit construction capabilities.

Responsibilities

Clean up and tile complex artwork to create 100% seamless vertical and horizontal repeats for all-over prints, swim, and knitwear.
Reduce artwork palettes down to flat, indexed color counts (typically up to 10 colors) without losing design integrity, eliminating gradients or anti-aliasing.
Match and assign accurate Pantone colors and yarn color references from mill yarn cards depending on the product category.
Build clean, production-ready vector Illustrator PDFs on Shinesty templates, ensuring color swatches are correctly named/organized in the Swatches panel, labeled on the layout, and easy for vendors to pull directly from the CAD.
Apply precise repeat measurements and correct Style/Header Numbers (SHN) to all artwork callouts.
Inspect incoming physical print strike-offs, fabric swatches, and lab dips against Pantone standards and original source files under standardized light sources.
Compare knit strike-offs against assigned yarn cards for color accuracy, scale, and pattern clarity.
Perform fast, precision edits in Illustrator/Photoshop to correct line breaks, scale issues, mis-registrations, or color shifts identified during the approval process.
Partner with internal Product Developers to send clear, actionable vendor feedback and artwork corrections to overseas manufacturing partners.
Monitor incoming shipments from mills and factories closely, and be available to receive, log, and act on urgent strike-offs, lab dips, and swatch packages on short notice.
Respond quickly to vendor emails and messages to keep the approval loop moving and avoid production and calendar delays.