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 contributi