Illustrator

Illustrator - Sprints (Funner Gear for Amateur Athletes)

Location: Cincinnati, OH (Hybrid)
Department: Design
Employment Type: Full-Time

About Sprints

Sprints creates Funner Gear for Amateur Athletes—bold, irreverent, high-quality running accessories and apparel that celebrate the slow runners, the hybrid athletes, the weekend warriors, and the people who make running fun. We’re a brand-led company that moves fast, thinks creatively, and builds products with personality. Our illustrations are one of our superpowers—from Bigfoot to flamingos to pickles to our entire universe of original characters.

We’re expanding our creative team and looking for an illustrator who can help evolve, protect, and scale our visual world.

Role Overview

The Illustrator will concept, design, and execute original artwork that appears on Sprints hats, towels, bags, apparel, packaging, digital content, and special projects. This person will help build our universe of characters, turn insights into sellable designs, and translate brand direction into commercially successful art.

The ideal candidate is imaginative, fast, and comfortable balancing creativity with business impact. They can jump from character development to technical patterning to production-ready art—while keeping the Sprints brand voice playful, energetic, and instantly recognizable.

Key Responsibilities

Illustration & Concept Development

Create original illustrations across categories (characters, patterns, icons, landscapes, objects, etc.)

Develop new art concepts from briefs, trends, athlete culture, and internal brainstorms

Evolve and extend our existing character universe across product lines

Ideate and sketch rapidly during early development cycles

Translate creative direction into fresh, commercially strong ideas

Product Design Integration

Deliver production-ready artwork for hats, towels, bags, apparel, and seasonal collections

Build seamless all-over prints, placed graphics, and vector-based designs

Ensure files meet factory specifications—color separations, repeats, print methods

Collaborate with Product Development on scale, placement, and construction constraints

Brand & Creative Collaboration

Work closely with Brand Director, Marketing, and B2B teams to ensure illustrations ladder up to collection narratives

Participate in line architecture planning and collection storytelling

Partner with social/content teams to create illustration-driven marketing assets

Maintain a consistent visual language across all consumer touchpoints

Speed, Process, & Execution

Work within fast-paced launch calendars and 270-day production timelines

Own multiple projects concurrently with strong organization and follow-through

Accept and iterate quickly based on feedback and market insights

Maintain file hygiene, version control, and scalable naming conventions for our growing archive

Qualifications

Required

Strong portfolio showcasing character design, pattern work, and digital illustration

Advanced proficiency in Adobe Illustrator (and familiarity with Photoshop)

Ability to adapt to a playful, bold, high-color brand aesthetic

Experience preparing art for print—CMYK, Pantone, repeats, technical files

Strong sense of composition, humor, personality, and storytelling

Ability to work quickly without sacrificing quality

Exceptional communication, openness to feedback, and collaborative spirit

Nice to Have

Experience in apparel, accessories, or consumer product categories

Familiarity with running culture, sports, or lifestyle branding

Motion graphics or animation capabilities

Experience with IP development or character libraries

Illustration skills across multiple styles when needed (watercolor, line art, digital painterly, vector, etc.)

What Success Looks Like

You create illustrations that instantly resonate with our community

You elevate our collections with fresh concepts, lovable characters, and commercial hits

You help systematize and grow the Sprints universe of IP

You produce fast, clean, consistent files that move through production smoothly

You collaborate fluidly across Brand, Marketing, and Product to bring ideas to life

Why Sprints

Work at one of the fastest-growing, most creative running-lifestyle brands in the country

Build characters and art that show up everywhere—from marathon expos to TikTok to national park trails

Be part of a brand-led culture that values humor, imagination, and boldness

Grow your career in a company where creative output isn’t just decoration—it is the product