Manager, Product Design – Dolls

Company Description

CREATIVITY IS OUR SUPERPOWER. It’s our heritage and it’s also our future. Because we don’t just make toys. We create innovative products and experiences that inspire fans, entertain audiences and develop children through play. Mattel is at its best when every member of our team feels respected, included, and heard—when everyone can show up as themselves and do their best work every day. We value and share an infinite range of ideas and voices that evolve and broaden our perspectives with a reach that extends into all our brands, partners, and suppliers.

The Team:
We are seeking a highly creative and innovative Manager to join our Barbie product design team. This role offers an exciting opportunity to shape the future of Barbie, one of the most iconic brands in pop culture history. We work with an equally passionate cross functional team that spans the globe, making our design-led toy company one of the best in the industry.

Job Description

The Opportunity:
The Global Product Design team is a group of passionate and inspired creatives with the goal of creating the best toys on earth! As a Barbie product design Manager, you will play a crucial role in leading the team creating fashion lines that resonate with today's diverse audience while continuing to empower and inspire the next generation of girls. Your work will not only shape the aesthetic of Barbie dolls but also reflect and promote the values of diversity, empowerment, and creativity. With the recent success of the Barbie movie, the brand has experienced a remarkable resurgence in popularity, capturing the attention of a new generation. This presents a pivotal moment to leverage the brand's cultural relevance and momentum, allowing your work to inspire and engage audiences in innovative ways. By integrating contemporary fashion trends and innovative ideas, you will contribute to making Barbie a relevant figure in today’s society, inspiring young minds through imaginative play and representation. Your work will help Barbie remain a symbol of empowerment and aspiration, driving conversations around fashion and identity in a constantly evolving cultural context.

What Your Impact Will Be: 

The Business

• You have a thorough understanding of the toy product design-development processes
  • From ideation sketches, illustrations, rough models, to final modeling and production
  • Have your finger on the pulse for the latest in fashion, graphics and toy trends
  • Have a clear understanding of the Toy industry, with familiarity of toys both past and present in the large dolls and fashion dolls categories.

• You are a strategic design thinker:
  • Able to contribute and execute on product design vision
  • Brings fresh POV with innovative design concepts
  • Understands systems of play in the dolls category
  • Build strategy around a toy line across a variety of price points and play styles
  • Solid understanding of how to design for the target consumer, influenced by kid usability and parent expectations and needs
  • Can take in feedback and commentary on projects and revise where necessary

• You are a visual designer
  • Able to create visual design language in a product that is suitable for that American Girl audience
  • Set the visual stage in color and story every season by presenting and applying trend
  • “Sweating the details” – Barbie is all about the details, from color to graphics to material finishes.  You need to care about the tiniest details.
  • Understanding of how play and design work together in product to tell a story
• An excellent communicator:
  • Able to present to an audience of varying sizes both clearly and confidently
  • Can take concepts and distill them into a clear, understandable narrative to garner buy-in throughout the organization through a variety of medium
• Collaborator:
  • Work with outside licensors to build the best product.  To be able to be a problem solver, partner and toy advocate.  To share communication in both directions to ensure alignment across all parties.
  • Working with Mattel’s Consumer Insights team to identify opportunities, consumer needs, parent, and kid purchase behaviors
  • Partner with Mattel’s cross-function team of experts in Marketing, Packaging, and Development.  
• You are nimble:
  • Able to pivot and revise on projects and strategy where business necessitates
  • Occasionally participate in design efforts outside of your area of expertise, and as your own skillset dictates
• Multi-tasker:
  • On projects with varying complexity through maximization of your design team and internal / external resources of Mattel (Internal cross function team, I