SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Thorne is seeking a Senior Packaging Production Designer to lead mechanical development, production readiness, and ongoing maintenance of packaging and labeling artwork across the organization's global product portfolio. This role serves as the primary production artwork owner, ensuring packaging moves accurately and efficiently from approved creative through cross-functional review, final production files, printer proofs, and release.
Day-to-Day Packaging Ownership:
You will serve as the day-to-day owner of packaging production artwork across the product portfolio, managing work from approved creative through mechanical development, review, approval, prepress, proofing, and final release. You will translate approved creative concepts into accurate, production-ready mechanical artwork across multiple packaging formats, sizes, product variants, markets, and print processes. You will build and maintain packaging artwork using approved dielines and specifications, including regulatory copy, ingredient and nutrition information, claims, certifications, barcodes, symbols, legal language, trademarks, and print specifications. You will own ongoing packaging revisions resulting from product launches, regulatory changes, formulation or ingredient updates, claims, certifications, renames, legal requirements, manufacturing changes, and other approved business needs. You will evaluate the impact of packaging changes across related SKUs, formats, and markets and ensure updates are implemented consistently across all affected files.
Packaging Quality, Compliance & Production:
You will partner with Quality, Regulatory, Medical, and Product teams to ensure approved packaging and labeling requirements are accurately reflected in final production artwork. You will perform comprehensive quality-control reviews before artwork is routed, approved, or released, identifying inconsistencies, errors, and production risks before manufacturing. You will collaborate directly with printers, converters, prepress vendors, packaging suppliers, Engineering, and Operations to ensure artwork meets technical and manufacturing specifications. You will review and approve digital proofs, contract proofs, press proofs, and color targets; partner with printers during press approvals when required. You will ensure color, print quality, typography, imagery, and other design details are executed consistently across vendors, substrates, packaging formats, and production runs. You will identify and resolve artwork, dieline, prepress, print, and production issues before manufacturing while protecting the integrity of approved creative. You will select and specify appropriate label sizes based on bottle/container dimensions, packaging requirements, and production specifications, partnering with Engineering and Operations as needed.
Packaging Systems, Standards & Governance:
You will establish and maintain disciplined standards for file naming, version control, artwork archiving, production-file organization, and artwork history to ensure traceability and clear identification of current approved artwork. You will own packaging artwork through established Change Management and project-management systems, including ETQ and Wrike, ensuring work is properly routed, documented, approved, and released. You will partner with cross-functional teams to continuously improve the end-to-end packaging workflow and clarify ownership, handoffs, approvals, and quality-control checkpoints. You will develop and maintain production standards, templates, mechanical requirements, proofing protocols, file structures, and documentation that support a consistent and scalable packaging program. You will serve as the organization's subject-matter expert for packaging production artwork, providing guidance to internal teams on mechanical development, prepress, print, and production requirements. You will support larger packaging initiatives, portfolio updates, and brand evolution as needed while maintaining ownership of ongoing business-as-usual packaging needs.
Cross-Functional Partnership & Prioritization:
You will act as a central packaging production partner across Creative, Quality, Regulatory, Legal, Operations, Engineering, Project Management, Product Marketing, and external vendors. You will manage multiple concurrent packaging projects and shifting priorities while maintaining accuracy, timelines, and clear communication with stakeholders. You will raise packaging risks, issues, and dependencies early and recommend practical solutions that keep work moving without compromising quality or compliance. You will maintain current knowledge of packaging production technologies, print processes, artwork-management practices, and industry best practices.
Requirements:
- 15+ years of professional experience in packaging production, mechanical artwork, production design, studio production, or a related discipline, preferably supporting a large consumer product portfolio
- Demonstrated experience working within a regulated CPG environment with complex packaging development, review, and approval processes; food, beverage, nutrition, supplements, wellness, OTC, or similarly regulated categories strongly preferred
- Supplement and nutritional product experience highly preferred, including familiarity with regulated labels, claims, ingredient information, and Supplement Facts panels
- Demonstrated experience managing production artwork across high-volume portfolios with multiple SKUs, packaging formats, variants, and/or international markets
- Expert-level proficiency in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, and Photoshop, with mastery of production artwork and prepress practices
- Advanced knowledge of packaging mechanical development, including dielines, typography, image resolution, bleeds, trapping, separations, spot colors, print specifications, UPC barcodes, and production file preparation
- Strong working knowledge of major packaging print and production processes and experience partnering directly with printers, converters, prepress houses, packaging suppliers, and production agencies
- Experience operating within formal regulatory, legal, and quality review and approval environments and with workflow systems such as ETQ, Wrike, Workfront, or similar platforms
- Strong understanding of artwork-management practices, including version control, asset management, proofing, approval workflows, file release, and archival requirements
- Exceptional attention to detail, organizational skills, and judgment, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent projects and determine when artwork is ready to advance to review or production
- Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to translate requirements among creative, regulatory, quality, technical, operational, and external production stakeholders
- Systems-oriented mindset with the ability to balance immediate production execution with development of scalable, long-term packaging processes
