Sr. Designer: Brand Identity in San Francisco, California at Dakotomy

Location: Fully Remote (EST–PST overlap required)
Availability: Contract (16–24 hours per week depending on project load)
Reports to: Associate Creative Director
Focus: Brand Identity Systems, Visual Language, Motion & Cross-Channel Expression

We're a small agency working mainly with VCs and their portfolios of tech startups. We serve founder teams from seed through Series A, giving them the systems they need to scale, raise, or pivot.

We need an experienced brand designer to build those enterprise-polished systems from scratch — the whole visual language, from wordmark and color to how a hero section loads and a button moves — and carry it through web and motion.

What You'll Do

Identity Design

• Design brand identity systems from scratch based on concepts and briefs from creative leadership: logo and wordmark, color palette, typography systems, iconography, imagery style, and overall visual tone
• Translate brand strategy and narrative into a distinctive, ownable visual language (not a template dressed up in new fonts and colors)
• Develop brand guidelines that are clear, comprehensive, and actionable (we prefer to create ours in Framer for ease of use)

Web Design & Aesthetic Direction

• Apply the brand system to web design, ensuring the site feels like a true extension of the identity
• Push aesthetic decisions (layout, type pairing, color use, imagery, texture) that reinforce the strategic qualities of the brand
• Partner with UX/UI-focused designer and development team to ensure identity, usability, and functionality coexist

Motion & Interaction

• Design motion principles for the brand: how elements enter, transition, and respond
• Create motion assets and micro-interactions (logo animations, transitions, hero animations) that make the brand feel alive
• Ensure motion is intentional and restrained where needed, expressive where it counts

Cross-Touchpoint Expression

• Extend the identity system across all brand touchpoints: pitch decks, social templates, one-pagers, email, merchandise, printed materials, and other collateral as scoped

Collaboration

• Present concepts and high-level rationale confidently to founders and executive teams
• Work with creative leadership to incorporate feedback with a discernment, protecting the integrity of the identity
• Work alongside strategists early in the process so identity and narrative are built together

Who You Are

• 5+ years of experience in brand design, with a portfolio showing multiple identity systems built from the ground up
• A strong point of view on typography, color, composition, and visual tone
• Portfolio examples of brand identities extended into web design and motion
• Comfort moving between the conceptual (defining a direction or mood) and the executional (building out a usable system)
• Advanced proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (especially Illustrator and After Effects or equivalent motion tools), Figma, and Framer
• An eye for detail and craft equal that delivers polished execution, not just strong concepts
• Clear communicator who can present and defend creative decisions to non-creative stakeholders
• Self-directed and proactive in a remote environment
• Strong written and spoken English proficiency

Bonus

• Venture capital or tech experience
• Experience collaborating with UX/UI designers or dev teams to ensure brand integrity through implementation
• Illustration, custom iconography, or type design experience
• Experience creating brand guideline systems used by multiple teams or vendors
• A demonstrated range across brand tones, from restrained and institutional to bold and expressive

Why Join Us?

• Creative Ownership: You'll originate identities from a blank page, not just restyle someone else's system.
• High-Leverage Work: The brands you build will shape how companies raise capital, hire talent, and define markets, often with real visibility and media attention.
• Strategic Exposure: You'll work directly with founders, managing partners, and executive teams.
• Creative Depth: We prioritize distinctive, considered design over volume-based production.
• AI-Forward, Human-First: We use AI to remove friction and enhance thinking, not replace craft.