Art Director: Packaging & Artwork

Role: Art Director: Packaging & Artwork

Location: Mumbai (full-time, non-remote)

Team: Brand Love @ Purplle

We’re looking for an Art Director who lives and breathes packaging

This isn’t a “make pretty designs” job.

Your job is to build packaging and artwork systems that work across all modern trade,

GT, quick commerce, Purplle stores, multiple marketplaces and still feel like real brands,

not commodities.

You’ll own the craft of packaging and print artwork across a portfolio of beauty and personal care brands, working closely with Brand Love Directors, Brand Managers, Content & Channels Leads, and a solid bench of designers.

If you enjoy taking a messy ecosystem, tightening the grid, and leaving behind systems that other designers can actually use, you’ll enjoy this role.

What you’ll own

• The overall packaging and artwork language for our private brands, in partnership with Brand Love Directors
• Master label, carton and combo-box templates that can scale across hundreds of SKUs without breaking
• Translation of brand worlds into clear, usable pack systems – front, back, sides, symbols, icons, claims, ingredients, usage
• Final print artwork quality: files that make printers happy and look the way we intended on shelf
• A small pod of designers who work with you on variants, extensions and daily artwork needs

What you’ll do day to day

• Work with Brand Love Directors to translate brand strategy into pack architecture, hierarchy and layout rules
• Design key hero packs or ranges yourself
• Design and refine master templates for labels, cartons and outer packaging across categories and sizes
• Set up clear rules for typography, grids, iconography, ingredient visuals and compliance information on pack
• Review and clean up artwork created by designers so it’s production-ready
• Work with printers and the production team to ensure colors, finishes and details land correctly in the real world
• Collaborate with the Offline/Retail Art Director on how packs read on shelf, in gondolas and in-store stories
• Collaborate with the PDP/E-comm Art Director so what we design on pack also works in tiles, PDPs and banners
• Guide and mentor designers on the basics: alignment, hierarchy, consistency, file hygiene, pre-press
• Help build and maintain a shared packaging library and artwork archive that the whole team can trust

Who you’ll work with

• Head of Brand Love: for overall direction and brand priorities
• Brand Love Directors: for each cluster of brands
• Content & Channels Leads: to align pack messaging with campaigns and content
• Other Art Directors in our team
• Designers and Creative Associates: your immediate pod for artwork and variants
• External print partners: to close the loop from Figma/AI/PSD to carton on shelf

You’ll be a good fit if

• You’re as interested in systems as you are in single pieces of design
• You’ve worked on FMCG/beauty/retail packaging before and understand how things look on real shelves, not just in decks
• You’re comfortable saying “no” or “not like this” when something breaks the system or cheapens the brand
• You care about the small stuff: kerning, leading, barcode placement, legal blocks, cutter guides, color shifts
• You enjoy mentoring designers and leaving behind better habits and cleaner files
• You can navigate feedback from multiple stakeholders without losing the core idea

Experience we’re looking for

• 6–10 years of design experience with a strong focus on packaging and print artwork
• A portfolio that shows:
• Real-world packs in market (ideally in beauty, personal care, or FMCG)
• Systems work: families of SKUs, not just one hero
• Comfort with both mass and more premium design languages
• Deep familiarity with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for artwork and mockups
• Solid understanding of print production, dielines, finishes, and pre-press requirements
• Experience working with or within in-house brand teams or agencies on long-running brands

How we work

This is a hands-on role inside a central Brand Love team that services multiple brands.

We run on systems, not heroics, we’d rather invest in a good framework than re-invent an artwork 50 times.

We care about taste, but we care just as much about speed, clarity and consistency at scale.

You’ll have space to do deep work on brand systems, but you’ll also be expected to help solve daily realities with the team.