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About garden3d
We are worker owned creative collective, innovating on everything from brands and IRL communities to IoT devices and cross platform apps. We share profit, open source everything, spin out new businesses, and invest in exciting ideas through financial and/or in-kind contributions.
Our client roster includes Google, Stripe, Figma, Hinge, Black Socialists in America, ACLU, Pratt, Parsons, Mozilla, The Nobel Prize, MIT, Gnosis, Etsy & Gagosian.
We’re the software team behind innovative products like The Light Phone & Mill, and we operate a global, decentralized community space collective called Index Space.
We think of our garden3d as collective for creative people, prioritizing a happy, talented, and diverse studio culture. We work on projects that bring value to our world, and we balance deep care for the work we do with a genuine curiosity about life outside of our jobs.
Sanctuary Computer — Development
At Sanctuary Computer we’re building a different type of technology shop – one that prioritizes close collaboration between the client and the craftsperson.
Our projects range from design-forward websites, to robust web apps, to native mobile development.
XXIX — Design
When we started XXIX in 2013, we set out to create a different kind of design studio and we’ve thrived because we continually ask what a creative practice can be.
We’re building a radically different kind of organization that values autonomy, growth, transparency, and shared responsibility.
Index Space — Community
A network of physical spaces all around the world, Index provides space for the exchange of knowledge and tools.
We nurture trust within the creative community through generosity and abundance of ideas and care.
garden3d TK — Media
At garden3d, we’re in the early stages of building an experimental media company exploring emerging themes related to the evolving landscape of technology, design and culture.
We aim to monetize this outlet, publish books, produce screenplays, and release music.
The Head of Design Role
The garden3d Head of Design has one mandate: nothing we put on the internet falls below an 8 out of 10. We are a house of brands - Sanctuary Computer (development), XXIX (design), Index Space (community), USB Club (digital community), and the garden3d umbrella itself - and all of them ship work into the world under our name. Working in close partnership with our founder & president Hugh Francis, this person sets the craft standard, and builds the culture that holds it.
You can be based anywhere. A lot of our people are in New York and there's some gravity here, but we already work across timezones and we would happily hire in Europe, Singapore, Chicago, or wherever you are. If you're the right person, we want to hear from you.
This role works with studio leads, designers, developers, editors, animators, photographers and clients across every garden3d vertical.
This person can move between a brand identity, a product interface, a case study and a launch film in the same week, and raise the bar on each of them.
They span all of garden3d, but their home base is XXIX. Our design studio is where the standard gets set, and where it either holds or slips, so this person runs critique there. Regular reviews. Honest and specific feedback. A shared language for why one thing is better than another, and what practically to do about it. Then they carry that same bar everywhere: to Sanctuary Computer's product and web work, to Index, to new USB Club product launches, to garden3d TK and everything we publish.
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They are also how we get better people. Our work is only as good as the designers making it, so this person hunts for exceptional talent, sells them on us, and sets them up to do the best work of their careers. The ideal candidate looks at a worker-owned collective with four studios, an open P&L and clients like Google, Figma and The Nobel Prize, and sees a design practice they can propel among the best in the world.
Responsibilities & Mandates
Quality never less than 8/10
We aspire for 10/10, celebrate 9/10 and never publish anything that’s not an 8/10 - visually, narratively, and in production quality. This person holds that line across every website, brand, deck, film, case study and post, on every vertical. They would rather kill a piece than let a 6 out the door. Their feedback makes work better and faster, without micromanaging the people who make it.
A critique culture at XXIX
XXIX is where our standard lives, so this is where most of their energy goes. They build and run its critique practice: reviews with teeth, feedback that is specific rather than polite, and a vocabulary the whole studio shares. A designer should leave a crit knowing exactly what to do next. Done well, the crit is what makes the studio better than any one person in it, including them.
Hiring and empowering the very best
They are a magnet for exceptional designers. They know where to find them, how to convince them, and how to give them enough room to do their best work while still holding them to the standard. People who work for this person should get visibly better, and should say so.
Client craft, at blue-chip standard
Our clients include Google, Stripe, Figma, Mozilla, The Nobel Prize and Gagosian. This person has sat across the table from companies like these, presented work, defended it, and shaped a brand narrative the client's own leadership could repeat back to their board. They can run a room, and they've done it across many industries, not just one.
New design business, and the projects that matter most
They run new business for design. Pitching, scoping and closing the work we actually want, and building the relationships that bring the next one back. When a project is our highest-profile or highest-budget, they're in it: not always as the day-to-day lead, but as the person shaping the creative direction and making sure it lands. The work we win, and the work we're known for, is the clearest measure of whether this is going well.
Type and editorial design
Typography and editorial systems are core craft here, not a specialism we farm out. This person has a real practice in both. Their type choices should be one of the first things you notice about their portfolio, and one of the first things our designers learn from them.
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Case study production
Every engagement across our studios should end in a case study you'd want to read. Producing them is second nature to this person: interviewing the team, shaping the narrative, art-directing the assets, and shipping something that wins the studio its next project.
Websites that put our best foot forward
Our sites are usually the first place a prospective client or hire meets us. This person owns what each garden3d site says, what work it shows, and how clearly it explains what that studio can do. They keep sites, decks and collateral current as the work moves, so what people find is sharp and true.
Presence IRL
garden3d shows up in person: events, conferences, talks, Index programming, and the dinners and openings where our world gathers. This person decides which of these deserve our time, gets us there looking like ourselves, and comes back with something to publish.
Culture
They model garden3d's values of partnership, curiosity, and accountability. The designers they lead do the best work of their careers here, because the feedback is honest, the recognition is earned, and the taste rubs off.
Special Projects
In addition to day to day responsibilities, here’s an idea of some of the projects this role may spearhead or support in coming years →
- Building XXIX's critique practice into something other studios try to copy
- Landing the kind of flagship design engagement that changes what people think we do
- Hiring the next generation of the design team, across every garden3d studio
- Rebuilding our studio websites so each one sells its studio properly
- A case study production line that feeds all four new-business pipelines
- Bringing our type and editorial practice into garden3d TK: books, covers, records, screenplays
- Setting the AI-assisted design pipeline the whole collective works from
Qualifications
This is a great opportunity for someone looking to make a significant impact in a growing, dynamic company. Based on the responsibilities of this role, we think the right candidate has the following experience and skills:
Must have:
- 10+ years in design, at least three of them leading a team inside a studio, agency or founder-led company
- A portfolio that proves exceptional taste: visual, typographic and narrative
- Type design and editorial design as core craft, not an occasional side interest
- Extensive client experience: presenting and defending work in front of blue-chip companies across many industries, and shaping the brand narrative their leadership repeats back
- A track record of winning design work, not only delivering it: pitching, scoping and closing new business at the top of the market
- A track record of hiring exceptional designers, and of people who got measurably better working for them
- Running critique: feedback that is specific, honest and actionable, and the ability to build a studio culture around it
- Hands-on Figma fluency. This person can make the thing, not only critique it (and will get on the tools when the need arises)
- Case study production as second nature: interviewing the
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