Assistant, Design Studio

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles.
Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio - a global house of brands committed to stretching what's possible.
A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive. Visit Our People page to learn more about Tapestry's commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity.
Primary Purpose:
The Assistant, Creative Studio is responsible for assisting in the facilitation of the design and development of Leather Goods across Kate Spade Outlet.
The Assistant will work closely with Design and cross-functionally with Merchandising, Product Development, Materials Development, Legal, Hardware Design, Technical Design, Art, and Concept Studio on the end to end process.They play a critical role at every milestone, ensuring the design intent is executed to the highest standards. This role acts as a key ambassador for Design.
Key Responsibilities:

• Attend all design and development meetings in a supportive role
• Ensure designers are aware of upcoming meetings. Prepare tools resources and information needed to support the designers to meet deliverables.
• Build and distribute recap decks after milestone meetings. Understands how to best visually communicate to multiple audiences.
• Assist Creative Studio manager in maintaining and driving cross-functional team communications
• Facilitate communication between leather goods design and cross-category design teams
• Partner with the team's CAD Designer to help build all visual design decks and update existing decks or documents as needed
• Assist in communication of creating and organizing handbag CADs during milestone meetings
• Assist color palette development process
• Assist legal process, walk throughs, submissions, and review of all sketches and product
• Keep strong records and notes for the design team; and distro to internal team as needed.
• Partner closely with Outlet Creative Studio Manager and entire Outlet Design team to help create efficiency and clarity on the design team.
• Anticipate challenges, roadblocks and potential delays within the role's responsibilities and proactively provide recommendations and contingency plans.
• Provide solutions for process improvements and enhancements, reducing complexity and non-creative work where possible.
• Helps to drive creative atmosphere and workplace, creating an inspiring environment for all.

Requirements:

• Interest in handbag design, construction, materials, and color
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Must be organized and extremely detail oriented
• Must know how to create systems / build process
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize well
• Ability to think creatively, strategically, and technically
• Must have a global mindset and experience working with cross-functional partners
• Must be highly resourceful and savvy
• Must have a highly collaborative working style
• Good eye for color
• Strong Record Keeper
• Proficient in Adobe illustrator, Photoshop, Excel

Our Competencies for All Employees

• Courage: Doesn't hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and "actionable" positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn't upset when things are up in the air; doesn't have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.

Our Competencies for All People Managers

• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.

Kate Spade is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant's or employee's qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under the consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Tapestry, Inc. will provide applicants and employees with reasonable accommodation for disabilities or religious beliefs. If you require reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact Tapestry People Services at 1-855-566-9264 or [email protected]
Visit Kate Spade at www.katespade.com .
Work Setup
BASE PAY RANGE $29.56 TO $32.70 Hourly
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