Free People Temporary Color Designer

Free People is seeking a Temporary Color Designer to join our Color Department and provide support during a maternity leave (approx. 4 months, starting July 2025).  In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with the Color & Textile Design Director to support palette development, category scheduling, color assorting, and lab dip approvals—while managing communication across Design, Buying, and Vendors to ensure color intent is executed flawlessly.  If you're organized, color-obsessed, and ready to jump in, we'd love to hear from you!

This is an in-person role based at our Philadelphia home office (5 days/week).  
Financial assistance is available for candidates relocating short-term from outside the area.

Palette Development/Color Trends:

• Assist in the development of seasonal palette direction, physical and digital palette creation and color matching needs.

• Support with additional research into seasonal/monthly color whilst keeping focus on brand appropriateness and true FP aesthetic that ties back Concept team directives.

• Collaborate with Director on building monthly color direction and support with references to

solids and category context from a seasonal transition and trend perspective.

• Pull physical swatch standards that represent chosen solids.

• Pantone match colors and pull physical Pantone chips to represent color match.

• Ensure all color palettes (physical and digital) are created and reviewed on time, ensuring that they match approved concepts.

• Stay up to date on color trends and provide insights on research that support the brand’s identity through collaborative discussions.

Color Meetings & Assorting:

• Manage all preparedness for by category color meetings (in-person and digital) including all color cards being created and master palettes accessible for viewing.

• Lead color meetings discussions to assess balance of color within style assort and across entire category assortment by protecting monthly color integrity, trend messages and category perspectives.

• Partner with Design and Buying teams to propose, refine, and finalize color selections for seasonal collections and ensure color choices are align with seasonal trend direction and FP aesthetics.

• Identify, speak to and manage color complexity across all classes and adjusting based of trends and business/sales.

• Develop and experiment with new colorways, ensuring they meet both quality standards and market demand.

Lab Dip Approval Process & Color Correspondence:

• Closely collaborate with Color DC to complete all tasks and ensure efficiencies in entire approval process and general communication with cross-functional partners.

• Comment on lab dips within a 24 hr period that are received.

• Review, approve and provide feedback on all Lab-dips for all retail collection categories ensuring they meet established quality standards.

• Handle all email correspondence for the retail categories for the brand.

• Work closely with the production team to troubleshoot any color-related issues in production runs.

• Document and communicate any color-related issues to cross-functional teams to ensure swift resolution.

Team Support:

• Provide guidance and support to junior colorists and team members, offering feedback and promoting skill development. Train in programs as needed.

• Troubleshoot and resolve any color-related issues that arise during the production or sampling stages.

• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to prioritize tasks and manage workflows efficiently.

• Support with maintenance and tidiness of color space, tools and archive.

• Design, Fashion or Color Design Experience strongly preferred.
• Passionate for colors as well as knowledgeable about colors, nuances and technicalities.
• Strong understanding of the Free People aesthetic and customer.
• Experience in Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.
• Illustrator, NedGraphics, and Tradestone experience welcomed.
• Knowledge of BOM processes is a plus (Tradestone/PLM systems).

Additional Attributes:

• Collaborative mentality with strong cross-department communication skills.

• Ability to work independently and manage multiple tasks efficiently.

• Detail-oriented with the ability to follow complex processes.

• Positive, proactive and strong team collaboration skills.

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.