Textile & Apparel Production Artist w/a sense of Humor

About Shinesty

Shinesty is a fast-growing apparel brand known for bold prints, irreverent humor, and products that don’t take themselves too seriously. Our creative team develops everything from iconic underwear prints to unexpected collaborations, and we pride ourselves on building products that are both clever and dangerously comfortable. Our mothers don’t always approve of what we do, but the millions of people we’ve entertained over the years do.

About the Role

Shinesty is looking for a detail-obsessed Textile & Apparel Production Artist to take artwork files and transform them into precise, mill-ready production assets.

In this role, you’ll be the critical bridge between creative design and manufacturing. You will build seamless pattern repeats, index color palettes, assign accurate color standards, and build clean, organized production CADs on our standard templates. Beyond file creation, you’ll own the color-approval loop—reviewing physical lab dips, print strike-offs, and knit swatches to ensure what comes off the factory line matches our exact design intent.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities

1. Production Art Setup & Technical CADs

• Seamless Repeats: Clean up and tile complex artwork to create 100% seamless vertical and horizontal repeats for all-over prints, swim, and knitwear.
• Color Reduction & Indexing: Reduce artwork palettes down to flat, indexed color counts (typically up to 10 colors) without losing design integrity, eliminating gradients or anti-aliasing.
• Color Assignment: Match and assign accurate Pantone colors and yarn color references from mill yarn cards depending on the product category.
• Template & Swatch Asset Building: Build clean, production-ready vector Illustrator PDFs on Shinesty templates. Ensure color swatches are correctly named/organized in the Swatches panel, labeled on the layout, and easy for vendors to pull directly from the CAD.
• Technical Dimensioning: Apply precise repeat measurements and correct Style/Header Numbers (SHN) to all artwork callouts.

2. Print & Color Quality Assurance (Approvals)

• Lab Dip & Strike-Off Review: Inspect incoming physical print strike-offs, fabric swatches, and lab dips against Pantone standards and original source files under standardized light sources.
• Sock/Knit Swatch Review: Compare knit strike-offs against assigned yarn cards for color accuracy, scale, and pattern clarity.
• Technical Editing: Perform fast, precision edits in Illustrator/Photoshop to correct line breaks, scale issues, mis-registrations, or color shifts identified during the approval process.
• Vendor Feedback Loops: Partner with internal Product Developers to send clear, actionable vendor feedback and artwork corrections to overseas manufacturing partners.
• Urgent Package Handling & Vendor Response Time: Monitor incoming shipments from mills and factories closely, and be available to receive, log, and act on urgent strike-offs, lab dips, and swatch packages on short notice. Respond quickly to vendor emails and messages to keep the approval loop moving and avoid production and calendar delays.

What We’re Looking For

• Location Requirement: Must be based in (or willing to relocate to) the Denver, CO metro area and able to work in our Denver office 3 days per week.
• Software Proficiency: Advanced, expert-level mastery of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop (specifically swatch panel organization, color indexing, vector manipulation, and layered file setups).
• Textile & Pattern Expertise: Direct experience creating seamless repeating patterns, technical artwork setups, and mill-ready tech packs for apparel or textiles.
• Color Eye: A trained, sharp eye for color evaluation, subtle tonal differences, and matching physical textiles to digital standards.
• Detail-Oriented: An obsessively technical mindset—you notice the single misaligned pixel or missing color code before anyone else does.
• Team-Oriented & Driven: A collaborative, hungry team player who takes ownership of the artwork-to-approval process and pushes projects forward without waiting to be asked.
• Availability & Responsiveness: Must be able to flex in-office days when urgent shipments are inbound or vendor turnaround windows are tight — the standard 3 days/week in-office is a baseline, not a cap, and may increase during high package volume or time-sensitive approval cycles.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working directly with overseas factories and mills (apparel, swim, or sock/hosiery experience is a major plus).
• Knowledge of textile printing methods (sublimation, wet print, screen print) and knit construction capabilities.

Benefits

• Mixed WFH - 3 days/week in office
• Access to any AI platform that will make you better at your job
• Medical, dental, vision insurance
• Dog-friendly office
• Flexible PTO, no need to accrue time take as much as you’d like
• Sweet Shinesty Discount