Illustration Assistant

Do You Turn Great Creative Direction Into Finished, On-Style Product Art?

At Hadley Designs, we believe that learning should be enjoyable, engaging, and screen-free. Millions of parents and teachers trust our beautifully designed, developmentally aligned educational tools to help children grow and thrive. As a fast-growing, family-founded brand, we are on a mission to make learning meaningful for families around the world, and we are looking for an early-career illustrator who wants to spend their days making the art that goes into our products.

We are seeking a Illustration Assistant to work hand-in-hand with our Chief Creative Officer, taking her creative direction and carrying it through to finished, production-ready product art. This is a maker's seat, not a template-and-layout role. If you love to draw, you have a genuine eye for cute, playful, kid-friendly design, and you want to grow your craft inside a brand that ships beautiful products every month, this is a rare opportunity to build your portfolio while doing work that reaches millions of families.

About Hadley Designs

Hadley Designs is redefining early education with creativity and purpose. Every product we create is hand-drawn and teacher-designed, crafted with care to build confidence and connection. Our screen-free tools help families and teachers make learning fun and meaningful, nurturing curiosity and creativity in children.

Our Mission: We design screen-free products that parents can trust to help their children learn, grow, and reach their full potential. We create beautifully designed, developmentally sound tools that replace noise and distraction with connection, curiosity, and real learning.

Our Vision: We aim to build the most trusted children's brand in the world, present in millions of homes, reshaping how families learn, connect, and grow. Our products will be so widely used and passed down that generations of children will grow up learning from them and choose them again for their own families.

Role Overview

As our Illustration Assistant, your one job is to turn the Chief Creative Officer's vision into finished, on-style product art, so Hadley Designs launches new products faster and our creative capacity is multiplied, not capped by a single set of hands. The CCO sets the tone, the style, and the strategy; you carry the hands-on execution, creating new artwork, completing sets in an established style, and building each concept out to production-ready. This is a deliberately early-career seat for someone with real illustration talent who wants to keep growing that craft. You will not be expected to arrive as a seasoned art director. You will be expected to draw well, learn our style quickly, take direction cleanly, and finish the last mile of the creative so the CCO can stay focused on setting direction rather than executing it.

Key Responsibilities

Original Illustration & Artwork

• Create new artwork and complete sets in Hadley Designs' established style across our product lines.
• Draw and illustrate original elements like characters, motifs, patterns, and scenes that fit our cute, kid-friendly aesthetic.

Product Design Execution

• Turn the CCO's concepts and creative direction into finished, production-ready product designs.
• Carry a design from initial handoff through final build-out without kicking work back up the chain.

Creative Production Support

• Own the execution offload (variations, building out a design across a full set, and file prep) that frees the CCO's hands.
• Prepare print and production files to spec, and build mockups and product previews for listings.

Style Consistency

• Keep every piece on-style and on-brand across the full product set.
• Maintain the living style-reference so the look stays consistent as the catalog grows.

As-needed: occasional ad-ops support (A+ content, storefront updates, CMYK ad images) and revisions on existing product lines. This is secondary support, not the core of the role.

How Success Is Measured

First-pass approval rate: the share of deliverables the CCO accepts with no major rework. This is how we measure "on-style" objectively.

New original art created: the volume of original artwork generated to feed the product pipeline.

Sets / SKUs completed: finished design sets shipped per month. The speed lever.

On-time delivery: the share of assigned pieces delivered by the agreed deadline.

• Framework-to-finish independence: the share of projects carried from CCO handoff to production-ready without kicking work back up.

Requirements

Who You Are

You are an early-career illustrator with genuine drawing talent and a real eye for cute, playful, kid-friendly design. You love to make art and you want to keep doing exactly that. This is the work you want to grow in, not a stepping stone into something else. You take creative direction cleanly, you learn a style fast, and you can carry a piece all the way to finished without needing it handed back to you. You thrive in a remote, fast-moving environment where new products ship every month, and you are excited to build your portfolio inside a brand that reaches millions of families.

Must-haves

• A portfolio of original illustration work that shows a cute, playful, kid-friendly or product-design sensibility.
• Working proficiency in Adobe Illustrator for native illustration (not just file handling or layout).
• Ability to match and extend an existing art style, completing a set so new pieces sit naturally alongside the originals.
• Strong ability to take written and verbal creative direction and turn it into finished work.
• Reliability on deadlines while managing several pieces at once.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience preparing print / production files to spec.
• Familiarity with the children's, educational, or consumer-product space.
• Comfort with lightweight project tools (Notion, ClickUp) and file organization.
• Note: this is an entry-level maker's role. We are not looking for a senior art director or a veteran illustrator. We are looking for real talent early in its arc, with the interest and hunger to grow.

Benefits

Why You'll Love Working Here

• Impact: Your work will directly impact how families experience learning through the Hadley Designs brand.
• Culture: Join a passionate, mission-driven team that values trust, creativity, and collaboration.
• Flexibility: Enjoy the freedom of a remote role with flexible working hours.
• Growth: Learn directly from our Chief Creative Officer and build a portfolio of shipped, real-world product work.
• Remote-first work environment
• Paid time off and holidays
• Access to learning resources and professional development
• Free access to Hadley Designs products
• Regular interaction with leadership, including the CEO and CCO
• Stability from a decade as a family-founded, mission-driven brand

Apply Today

If you're ready to make a meaningful impact in a growing company that's shaping the future of learning, apply now to join the Hadley Designs team as our Illustration Assistant. Help us create a lasting impact on families, educators, and children worldwide.

P.S: If you don't hear from us within four weeks of your application, please consider that as our decision to move forward with other candidates, but we truly appreciate your interest in Hadley Designs.