Founding Brand Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Founding Brand Designer

Company: Basis AI

Location: New York, NY, United States

Job Type: Full-time

Category: Brand Design / Creative Direction

Date Posted: September 20, 2026

Experience Level: Mid-Senior Level (5-8 years)

Remote Status: On-site (New York, Flatiron office)

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead the end-to-end development and execution of Basis AI's brand identity, encompassing both customer-facing and technical narratives.

• Drive creative strategy and visual design across all brand touchpoints, including website, marketing campaigns, customer stories, and recruiting materials.

• Establish and maintain a flexible, scalable brand system and design operating system to ensure consistency and efficiency across diverse go-to-market motions.

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting to translate complex AI concepts into clear, compelling visual communication.

• Set the creative direction and quality bar for design at Basis AI, challenging weak ideas and fostering a point of view on modern B2B design.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role is for a "Founding Brand Designer," indicating a critical, early-stage position where the individual will have significant autonomy and impact in shaping the company's visual identity from the ground up. The emphasis on "real agents that do real work in the real economy" suggests a need for a brand that communicates both advanced technology and tangible business value, moving beyond typical AI tropes.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Define and execute the overarching brand strategy, ensuring a cohesive visual identity that resonates with both B2B customers and the technical AI community.

• Develop and maintain a comprehensive brand system, including guidelines, templates, and reusable assets, that supports multiple go-to-market strategies and buyer personas.

• Design and oversee the visual execution of key brand assets such as the company website, product launch materials, marketing campaigns, sales collateral, and recruitment materials.

• Collaborate with developers to ensure seamless implementation of web designs, focusing on responsive experiences and strong digital design principles.

• Champion a high standard of creative excellence, providing clear direction, constructive feedback, and strategic rationale for design decisions.

• Build and implement AI-enabled workflows to enhance creative output and operational efficiency within the design function.

• Partner with Product Marketing, Content, Demand Generation, Customer Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting to ensure brand alignment and effectiveness across all departments.

• Manage and guide external agencies, freelancers, and future design hires to maintain brand quality and coherence.

📝 Enhancement Note: The description emphasizes building an "operating system for design at Basis," suggesting a need for a candidate who can not only design but also architect scalable design processes and systems. This goes beyond typical brand design roles, requiring strategic thinking about how design functions within a fast-growing AI company.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While no specific degree is mandated, a strong foundation in design principles, visual communication, and brand strategy is expected, typically acquired through formal education in Graphic Design, Visual Communication, or a related field, or through equivalent professional experience.

Experience: 5-8 years of progressive experience in brand design, visual design, or creative direction.

Required Skills:

• Proven track record in developing complete brand systems, not just individual assets, that effectively communicate complex products and abstract ideas.

• Exceptional taste and demonstrable expertise in typography, composition, color theory, visual hierarchy, image direction, and visual storytelling.

• Strong proficiency in digital design tools and a solid understanding of responsive web design principles, with experience collaborating closely with front-end developers.

• Experience in building and scaling design systems, establishing clear standards, and creating workflows that maintain brand consistency across diverse applications and audiences.

• Robust creative judgment, confident communication skills, and the ability to articulate design rationale, defend decisions, accept feedback, and iterate on work.

• Technical curiosity and a demonstrated ability to quickly grasp complex products, understand target buyers, and navigate new markets.

• Experience working within high-growth software, AI, fintech, or technical product companies. Preferred Skills:

• Experience in creating category-defining brand identities that secure a distinct market position.

• Demonstrated expertise in shaping B2B websites from narrative and information architecture through to interaction and final visual design.

• Experience developing integrated campaign concepts that effectively traverse digital, editorial, social, event, and sales channels.

• A keen editorial taste, with experience producing clear, useful, and engaging content such as reports and customer stories.

• Proven ability to build design systems and workflows that compound value over time, making subsequent projects faster and stronger.

• A thoughtful approach to leveraging AI in creative exploration, production, and iteration.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Founding" aspect of this role implies a need for a candidate who can operate with a high degree of autonomy and strategic foresight, essentially building the design function from its inception. The emphasis on "category-defining" work and "AI-native creative practice" suggests a preference for candidates who have experience with disruptive technologies and can push creative boundaries.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• A curated portfolio showcasing complete brand systems, demonstrating the ability to create a unified and distinctive visual identity for complex products or abstract ideas.

• Evidence of designing and shipping responsive web experiences, including examples of collaboration with developers.

• Case studies that illustrate the development and application of design systems, standards, and workflows across various buyer personas and go-to-market motions.

• Examples of integrated campaign concepts and their execution across multiple channels.

• Work that highlights strong editorial taste in content presentation, such as reports or customer stories.

• Demonstrations of how design work has led to tangible business impact, such as increased brand recognition, market differentiation, or creative velocity. Process Documentation:

• Showcase the process of translating company narrative and technical complexity into visual brand elements.

• Detail the methodology for building and maintaining a scalable brand system and design operating system.

• Provide examples of how AI has been integrated into the creative process for exploration, production, or iteration.

• Illustrate the approach to collaborating with cross-functional teams (Marketing, Product, Sales, Recruiting) to ensure brand consistency and impact.

📝 Enhancement Note: The expectation for "complete brand systems" and a "system that compounds" highlights the need for a portfolio that goes beyond individual design pieces. It should demonstrate strategic thinking about how design can be scaled and leveraged as a core business asset. The "Founding" nature of the role means the portfolio should also hint at the candidate's ability to build and structure design processes from scratch.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: $150,000 - $210,000 per year.

Benefits:

• Health & Wellness: Premium Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage; Life Insurance; 6 coaching & 6 therapy sessions through Spring Health.

• Wellhub Membership: Full access to gyms (Lifetime, SoulCycle, NYSC, etc.) and wellness apps (Strava, Headspace).

• Time Off: Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) plus 12 paid company holidays.

• In-Office Perks: Daily meal stipends, a fully stocked kitchen, and a $300 allowance for custom desk setup.

• Financial Benefits: Pre-tax commuter benefits and a 401(k) retirement plan.

• Equity: Inclusion in an equity plan.

• Team Culture: Monthly office activities and frequent optional team happy hours.

• Parental Leave: Comprehensive parental leave policy.

Working Hours: The role is on-site in New York, implying standard full-time working hours (approximately 40 hours per week), with flexibility expected to meet project demands and deadlines.

📝 Enhancement Note: The salary range provided is competitive for a senior-level brand design role in New York City, especially for a founding position at a well-funded startup. The comprehensive benefits package, including the unique Wellhub membership and generous in-office perks, indicates a strong focus on employee well-being and a positive work environment. The inclusion of equity is standard for founding roles in startups.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Applied Machine Learning, Enterprise Software, Professional Services Automation. Basis AI is at the forefront of building production-grade, long-horizon AI agents for complex tasks in the real economy.

Company Size: Basis AI is a rapidly growing startup, indicated by its recent $100M funding round at over a $1B valuation and its ambition to "deploy the most advanced applied ML at production scale." This suggests a dynamic, fast-paced environment with a team that is likely growing quickly.

Founded: The founding date is not explicitly provided, but the company's rapid growth and significant funding indicate it is likely a relatively young, venture-backed startup that has achieved substantial milestones.

Team Structure:

• The Brand Designer will report to the Head of Marketing and will collaborate closely with Product Marketing, Content, Demand Generation, Customer Marketing, Product, Sales, and Recruiting.

• As a "founding" role, the designer will be instrumental in establishing the initial design function and will likely work directly with senior leadership.

• The team is described as "in-person" and "5 days a week" in the New York Flatiron office, fostering a collaborative and hands-on working environment. Methodology:

• Data-Driven Insights: The company leverages advanced applied ML and operates at "production scale," implying a strong reliance on data for decision-making, performance tracking, and product development.

• Process Optimization: The