Staff Brand Designer

In 1954, Eero Saarinen designed a branch office with glass walls, no offices, and a completely open floor plan in Columbus, Indiana. It was surrounded by trees; the furniture was made by Herman Miller; the lobby flooring was thick, rustic brick. It was built with transparency and community at its core. Since then, a lot of things have happened — Saarinen's branch is now a conference center, people increasingly live on the internet, and it's hard to think of a single financial institution that still applies design thinking to their company.

Mercury is on a mission to defy those expectations. We're a financial technology company that helps startups spend less time banking* and more time building. We believe that the key to our success revolves around thoughtful design — and we hold the craft of that design to an exceptionally high standard. We're looking for a Staff Brand Designer who sets that bar: someone whose eye is so precise, and whose execution is so considered, that the work around them gets better just by virtue of their presence.

This is a role for a designer who sweats the details that most people don't notice — the type hierarchy, the negative space, the grid, the crop. Someone who has developed a genuine aesthetic philosophy over years of doing hard work at a high level, and who brings that philosophy to everything they touch. You'll own the most technically complex brand design work at Mercury, provide craft oversight across the Brand Studio, and help define what visual excellence looks like as our brand continues to evolve.

*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

In this role, you’ll:

• Set and uphold the craft standard for Mercury's brand — across campaigns, web, social, events, and every surface the brand touches.
• Lead the most technically complex and high-visibility brand design projects end-to-end, from brief through delivery.
• Partner with a staff-level brand designer and creative leadership to co-lead the evolution of Mercury's creative direction — defining and executing visual standards across typography, imagery, layout, and motion.
• Provide hands-on craft oversight across Brand Studio output — reviewing work, raising the quality floor, and helping the team make better decisions.
• Commission and art-direct external creatives: photographers, illustrators, and motion designers.
• Develop brand system documentation and decision-making frameworks that help the team move with confidence and consistency.
• Mentor IC3 and IC4 designers through critique, pairing, and direct feedback — elevating their craft through the work, not just in conversation.
• Collaborate with brand strategists, copywriters, PMMs, and leadership on how Mercury shows up across all channels.
• Shape how Brand Studio uses AI in its craft. You’ll set the standard for where AI belongs in the creative process, build AI-ready brand guidelines the team can design against, and hold the quality bar as these tools become part of how work gets made.

What you’ll bring:

• A portfolio that is simply excellent — work that demonstrates mastery of typography, layout, color, and composition across a range of brand contexts.
• A clear and deeply held aesthetic point of view: you can articulate what makes something great and what makes something fall short, and you've built that perspective through years of rigorous practice.
• Fluency in brand systems — you understand how to build for scale and consistency, and you've stewarded a brand through growth or change.
• 7–10+ years of brand design experience, with a background that includes high-craft environments: agency, fashion, elevated consumer, or design-forward tech.
• Experience operating at a staff level: you work autonomously, influence without authority, and make decisions that shape the output of an entire team.
• Proficiency in Figma and hands-on experience contributing to or owning a design system.
• Strong verbal and presentation skills — you can communicate the process, intent, and impact of your design decisions with clarity.
• The judgment to know when to zoom in and when to zoom out, and the discipline to hold both at once.
• A considered point of view on AI’s place in high-craft design. You’ve used AI tooling in real creative work and can guide a team on where it belongs and how to use it without lowering the bar.
• Curiosity, restraint, and a genuine passion for doing work that's worth doing.

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