Location: Zurich, Switzerland
About On
Born in the Swiss Alps, On has disrupted the sportswear landscape through relentless exploration. Our journey began not with a standard shoe, but with a radical ambition to redefine movement. We are fueled by innovation, bold dreams, and a commitment to better ways forward. Our mission—igniting the human spirit through movement—is built on three core pillars: Performance, Design, and Impact. Our personality is defined by being Obsessive about our craft, Unconventional in our approach, and Fearless in shaping a premium future.
In short
As a Senior Design Lead, Brand Environment Design at On, you will be instrumental in shaping how our brand comes to life in the physical world outside of retail. You will lead the spatial design direction, translating On’s distinctive brand design language into consistent, immersive, and premium physical experiences globally. This role is about creating visionary concepts, guiding design teams and external partners, and developing the strategic frameworks that ensure every physical touchpoint feels unmistakably On: premium, coherent, and rooted in innovation.
Your Mission
Your core mission will be to define and elevate how On shows up in the physical world, driving creativity and consistency across all non-retail touchpoints. You will be responsible for:
- Leading Spatial Design Direction: Directing the creative path for non-retail environments to guarantee visual harmony and premium execution that reflects our core identity.
- Creating Concepts and Narratives: Translating brand priorities and overarching creative direction into tangible, immersive, and impactful physical concepts and compelling experience narratives.
- Guiding Designers and Agencies: Developing inspiring briefs that empower internal and external talent to transform high-level strategy into premium, aesthetically aligned outputs from concept to launch.
- Ensuring Creative Alignment and Fidelity: Acting as the guardian of On's design standards, ensuring all physical brand expressions maintain premiumness and coherence across diverse touchpoints. This includes publishing the first official "Brand Environment Design Guidelines/Principles" aligned with new premium retail standards.
- Developing Toolkits & Design Frameworks: Designing comprehensive physical brand systems and scalable toolkits that facilitate locally relevant yet globally unified brand expression across activations and strategic spaces.
- Fostering Cross-Functional Collaboration: Serving as a key connector across brand, retail, and regional experience teams, aligning physical executions to a unified omnichannel vision.
- Championing Innovation & Premiumness: Continuously evolving On's physical brand presence by infusing each activation with innovative thinking, high-end design standards, and an elevated aesthetic that redefines what premium means for a performance brand. This includes supporting immersive "LightSpray" technology showcases and ensuring athlete-centric environments reflect On's premium, performance-first identity.
Your Story
We are looking for a visionary design leader who bridges creative artistry with strategic frameworks and holds a deep-seated drive for crafting immersive brand worlds. To be successful in this role, you should bring:
- Proven Experience: A minimum of 5–7 years of experience in spatial design, environmental design, or experiential architecture, with a strong track record of leading design teams.
- The Right Profile: Experience working within a top-tier creative advertising/experiential agency, ideally coupled with in-house experience at a premium, global lifestyle or performance brand. You understand both the fast-paced creative rigor of agency life and the strategic long-term vision of an in-house brand.
- Proven Project Scale: Proven experience managing large-scale, complex physical design projects and activations from concept to execution, comfortably handling project budgets ranging from $250k to $1M+.
- Portfolio of Immersive Environments: A portfolio showcasing high-impact physical spaces outside of standard retail, such as global brand activations, large-scale event summits, pop-ups, and premium athlete-centric environments.
- Strategic Toolkit Development: Extensive experience in developing global toolkits, design principles, and scalable frameworks that enable consistent and high-quality brand expression across various global markets.
- Creative Visionary & Advocate: The ability to materialize complex creative themes into premium, high-impact physical environments, maintaining an unwavering focus on quality, detail, and brand integrity.
- Collaborative Leadership: A demonstrated ability to steer internal design teams and external production agencies, aligning diverse cross-functional stakeholders and regional teams around a unified vision.
- Effective Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills in English are required; additional languages are a plus for global collaboration.
About the Team
We ensure that wherever the brand meets people in the real world—be it on a global stage, within an athlete environment, at a summit, or in a B2B setting—it feels unmistakably On: premium, coherent, and rooted in innovation. Translating brand intent into physical reality through guidelines, toolkits, and execution frameworks.
