Creative Designer - Digital Proofs & Production Art

We manufacture custom menu covers, guest directories, wine books, signage, and large-format graphics for restaurants, hotels, resorts, and beverage brands across the country. Most of our work starts with a mock-up: a client wants to see their logo debossed into a specific simulated leather, foil-stamped on a wine book, or printed across a 10-foot wall graphic - before a single unit is built.

That’s this job. You’ll create the digital proofs and renderings our sales team uses to win national accounts, and then set those same designs up as production-ready files for our shop floor. Think ad-agency-quality presentation work, but grounded in how things actually get made.

This is not a role where you hand off a pretty picture and walk away. What you show the client has to be producible, and it has to look like what ships. You’ll work directly with our production and pre-press teams to make sure both are true.

What you’ll do

• Build photorealistic digital mock-ups and renderings using our actual cover materials - simulated and genuine leathers, wovens, wood, metal, specialty substrates - with accurate deboss, foil, screen print, UV, and stitching treatments
• Partner with sales reps on new-business pitches and RFPs: take a rough concept or a client’s brand guide and turn it into presentation-ready visuals, often on a short clock
• Set up approved designs for production - dielines, imposition-ready art, spot color and foil separations, bleeds, trap, print-ready PDFs
• Work across both small format (menus, inserts, tent cards, digital and offset) and large format (banners, wall graphics, rigid substrate, dimensional signage)
• Sit down with production, pre-press, and estimating early enough to catch what can’t be built - material behavior, corner and edge construction, binding method, panel layout, machine limits
• Keep our material library, texture assets, and mock-up templates current and organized so proofs stay consistent and fast to produce
• Prep client-facing presentation decks, spec sheets, and proof packages

• Strong working command of the Adobe Creative Suite - Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat. This is a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
• Real design sensibility: typography, layout, color, and the judgment to make a mock-up look like a finished product instead of a comp
• An understanding of how printed and fabricated products go together - substrates, finishing, binding, assembly
• Comfort working with production people, asking manufacturing questions, and taking feedback that starts with “we can’t build that”
• Ability to manage several active projects and hit deadlines that are usually tied to a sales call
• Portfolio required

Nice to have

• Experience with 3D rendering or mock-up tools (Adobe Dimension, Blender, KeyShot, Substance) or advanced smart-object mock-up workflows
• Prepress or production art experience in a commercial print, packaging, or fabrication environment
• Background in packaging, structural, or dimensional design
• Product photography and retouching
• Experience in hospitality, foodservice, or a brand-driven print environment
• Working knowledge of large-format print production and RIP workflows

Paid training, 401(k), Health insurance, 401(k) matching, Paid time off, Vision insurance, Dental insurance, Life insurance Full-time Monday to Friday Saint Augustine, FL 32095, Schedule, pay, and benefits

• Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with a one-hour lunch
• On-site at either our Jacksonville or St. Augustine facility - tell us which location works better for you
• $20-$25 per hour, depending on experience
• Paid time off: one week after one year of employment, two weeks after two years
• Health insurance
• 401(k)
• Paid product and manufacturing training - we’ll teach you our materials, construction methods, and equipment, * 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance