The Role

You are an experienced designer and a driving force behind the work. Your days are spent relentlessly generating ideas, crafting thoughtful brand identities, and pushing the quality of design around you.

You bring curiosity, taste, and precision to everything you do — from the earliest sparks of an idea through to the final execution. You’re deeply engaged in the craft of branding, contributing bold thinking and exceptional design while helping elevate the work of the wider team.

Your Responsibilities

1. You are a strong conceptual thinker who consistently brings original, creative ideas to the table. You actively participate in creative discussions, helping push the team toward sharper thinking and more ambitious outcomes.

2. You spend the majority of your time designing and developing thoughtful identity systems. You have a strong command of typography, symbolism, color, illustration, iconography, and art direction — and can bring these elements together into cohesive, world-class brand identities.

3. You can drive parts of a project forward with confidence by taking ownership of design tasks, exploring ideas with greater autonomy, and aligning closely with the senior creative team.

4. You collaborate closely with the designers around you — sharing knowledge, supporting junior team members, and contributing to a culture of strong creative thinking and craft.

5. You help build compelling client presentations and are comfortable presenting work to clients and internal teams. You clearly articulate the thinking behind the work and confidently guide others through your ideas.

6. You absorb insights from immersion and strategy phases and translate them into thoughtful, creative design systems and visual expressions.

7. You maintain a strong awareness of the brands, studios, and creative practitioners shaping the industry today. Your work reflects curiosity, taste, and a passion for culture and design.

8. You understand the time required to produce high-quality work and can effectively manage your tasks, calendar, and deadlines.

9. You have a strong working knowledge of Figma, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Pitch.

10. You are excited to work in person in our New York studio, contribute to our culture, and collaborate closely with the team. You’re also open to travel when projects require it.

Our Responsibilities

1. We will ensure you have meaningful and regular access to your manager to support your personal development and career trajectory.

2. We will actively reward performance with promotions, pay increases, and a discretionary annual bonus of up to 10% of salary to all employees.

3. We ensure Koto is an equal environment for all its employees.

4. We will support you in taking family leave and offer significant paid maternity and paternity.

5. We will actively encourage you to take 25 days of vacation annually, in addition to US bank holidays, and a studio closure over the December Holidays.

6. We will contribute up to an additional 4% to anyone who contributes to our 401(k) plan.

7. We deploy a monthly ‘employee wellness’ benefits package via Juno of $100 per month.

8. We offer access to YCN and fund relevant training opportunities to any employee looking to develop themselves and their career.

9. We reward five years of service with $5,000 and five days of vacation. We reward ten years of service with $10,000 and four weeks' vacation.

10. We will give you the opportunity to work from any of the four Koto studios globally, for a set time period, with appropriate planning and application.

Our Culture

• At Koto, we encourage our team to be ‘rationally optimistic’ about the potential of our work, our clients, their businesses, and the power of brand.

• We pursue the best briefs, want to inspire meaningful work, and, for those interested, provide an opportunity to make the work of their lives. We are actively cultivating leadership, culture, and spaces to encourage this.

• We work in person, with an optional WFH day on Friday and an additional 2 weeks of remote work a year. We believe this produces the best work, mentoring opportunities, collective learning, and culture.

• We encourage autonomy among our team members, allowing them to manage their time, hours, and personal commitments appropriately to complete their work.