Long-term Freelance Retail Designer
Long-term Freelance Retail Designer
Reports to: Head of Creative
Type: Long-term Freelance, 3 days per week, start in August
Role Overview
We are looking for an experienced and highly organized Freelance Retail Designer to act as our in-house retail design expert. This role serves as a vital link between our internal teams, external partners, and our external retail agency. You will ensure that all physical retail environments consistently reflect our brand vision, are produced to the highest quality, are delivered on time and to budget, meet our functional and commercial needs, while remaining hands-on with adaptations and store planning.
Who we are looking for
You are a creative problem solver with a keen eye for detail and a passion for turning concepts into outstanding retail executions. You are a self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, global environment where you can balance hands-on development, seamlessly moving between ideation, execution and refinement - sometimes all in the same day!
Collaboration is at the heart of how you work. You partner closely with cross-functional teams to challenge ideas and refine products to perfection. Rather than sticking to rigid processes, you embrace agility, always looking for smarter, more innovative ways of working.
Most importantly, you bring the energy, creativity, and curiosity to thrive in a playful and colorful environment. You’re shaping experiences, embracing the unexpected and adding your own spark of creative magic along the way.
Key Responsibilities
Agency Collaboration & Management: Act as the primary point of contact for our external retail design agency. You will guide their work, deliver creative feedback, and ensure the display programs they develop align with our creative vision.
In-House Retail Design Expert: Serve as the internal owner of our retail concept offering from a creative and strategic perspective. Ensure that the concepts designed by the agency are functional, scalable, and applied consistently across physical channels like shop-in-shops, outlets, pop-ups, and window displays.
Ownership of Premium & Seasonal Spaces: Take full ownership of designing and executing seasonal retail spaces, window installations, and premium pop-ups that elevate the brand experience and go beyond our display program.
Design Adaptation & Execution: Take the display programs created by the agency and execute hands-on store planning and visualisations (3D mock-ups) for permanent stores and pop-ups. Adapt artworks for physical environments and customize window designs based on overarching campaign concepts.
Production & Quality Oversight: Review the agency's technical drawings and ensure excellence in production and quality for all retail environments. Advocate for solutions that maintain and improve sustainability, compliance, cost-effectiveness, and functionality across our retail fixtures.
Cross-Functional Communication: Manage the dialogue and delivery of projects internally. Work closely with operations to ensure correct stock levels and pricing for retail displays, and collaborate with the Head of Creative to ensure brand cohesion.
Guidelines & Merchandising: Create and distribute guidelines for pop-ups, shop-in-shops, and general merchandising to ensure our partners around the world (concept stores, distribution, and wholesale) can flawlessly execute the agency's display program.
Project Management: Take briefs from local markets and partners, translate them into actionable to-do’s, map out a timeline, communicate with stakeholders and manage your schedule in order to deliver on time and to budget, every time.
Product Development & Systems: Responsible for product developments and article management in our PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system Delogue, ensuring that article information and master data is accurate and up-to-date, managing communications with suppliers, and other administrative work.
Requirements & Skills
Proven experience in retail design, encompassing both a creative vision and a strong understanding of physical production, material, sustainability, and compliance.
Strong technical skills; the role requires proficiency in Rhino, Keyshot, SketchUp and Adobe Creative Suite.
Excellent project management, administrative, and communication skills, with the ability to act as the primary liaison with internal teams, external partners and ourexternal agency.
Ability to evaluate technical drawings and oversee the journey from concept to production-ready products.
Capacity to work on several projects at once, under pressure, and to tight deadlines.
Experience working with PLM systems, Delogue is a plus!
Experience of working with project management tools like Asana
Fluent in English, both spoken and written, Swedish is a plus
- Locations
- Stockholm
- Workplace type
- Hybrid
Stockholm
Workplace & Culture
When we’re not getting the job done, we're all about having fun! We have offices in Stockholm, NYC and Munich and they are all decked out with quirky decor.
Each month we throw afterwork drinks and we often plan team activities to keep morale high. We believe work should be fun, and we do everything we can to make sure our employees feel the same.
About Happy Socks
Happy Socks aims to spread happiness by turning an everyday essential into a colorful design piece. The business is built on foundations of rigid quality standards, craftsmanship and creativity that are transferred into the products by a talented team of creatives. The products feature endless variations of models and designs, using a broad spectrum of color combinations and original patterns.