CHK
Website:
gochk.com
Job details:
About CHK
CHK is an Indian sneaker brand building contemporary footwear for the next generation of consumers. We obsess over silhouette, proportion, materials, color and the small details that turn a good sneaker into one people actually want to wear.
As we expand our footwear portfolio, we’re looking for a Footwear Designer – Color, Materials & Product to join our team and help shape how CHK products come to life.
The Role
This isn’t a role focused only on sketching new sneaker silhouettes. We’re looking for someone who loves playing with color, materials, textures and finishes and can constantly find new ways to reinterpret our existing and upcoming sneakers.
You’ll work across our footwear portfolio to develop new colorways, material combinations and product treatments — experimenting with suede, leather, mesh, synthetics, textures, washes, trims, laces, outsoles and other details to create products that feel fresh while remaining distinctly CHK.
You’ll also stay closely involved as your designs move from a screen to physical samples and eventually into production.
Simply put: Your job is to make our sneakers look better, feel fresher and keep evolving.
What You’ll Do
1. Color & Material Design
- Create new colorways for existing and upcoming CHK silhouettes.
- Build seasonal and evergreen color palettes based on fashion, sneaker and cultural trends.
- Experiment with combinations of suede, leather, mesh, synthetics, textiles and other footwear materials.
- Explore textures, finishes, overlays, stitching, laces, branding treatments, outsole colors and smaller product details.
- Develop tonal, contrasting and more experimental executions of existing sneakers.
- Create color/material mock-ups and visualizations before sampling.
- Maintain a continuous pipeline and library of future CHK colorways and material concepts.
2. Product Design
- Work with existing silhouettes to explore new executions without unnecessarily redesigning the underlying shoe.
- Understand how paneling, proportions, materials and color blocking affect the overall perception of a sneaker.
- Translate creative ideas into clear design files and specifications that factories can understand.
- Prepare and update footwear tech packs, material call-outs, Pantone references and design specifications.
- Collaborate with external footwear designers when new silhouettes are being developed.
3. Trend & Product Research
- Constantly track what is happening across global sneakers, fashion and streetwear.
- Follow emerging color, material and footwear trends across international brands.
- Build regular moodboards and CMF (Color, Material & Finish) directions for CHK.
- Identify interesting materials, constructions and treatments that could be adapted for CHK products.
- Understand the difference between a trend worth adopting and one that doesn’t fit the CHK consumer.
4. Sampling & Development
Your involvement doesn’t end once the design file is sent. You’ll work closely with our product and manufacturing teams to take designs through:
Design → Material Selection → Sampling → Review → Corrections → Final Approval → Production
You’ll:
- Review physical samples against the original design intent.
- Check color accuracy, material quality, textures, finishes and detailing.
- Document sample corrections and revisions.
- Work directly with the factory/product team to solve design-related issues.
- Maintain organized records of colorways, materials, samples and revisions.
- Help track products through the development process until they’re ready for launch.
Who We’re Looking For
We’re looking for someone with strong visual taste AND an understanding of how footwear is actually made.
Ideally, you have:
- 2–5 years of experience in footwear design, sneaker design, CMF design or footwear product development.
- A degree/background in Footwear Design, Product Design, Fashion Design or a related discipline.
- Strong proficiency in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
- Experience creating footwear colorways and material specifications.
- Understanding of footwear materials such as suede, leather, mesh, synthetics, textiles, rubber and related components.
- Working knowledge of Pantone/color systems, tech packs and footwear manufacturing.
- Experience communicating with factories and reviewing footwear samples.
- Strong understanding of sneaker culture, fashion and global footwear trends.
- Excellent attention to detail.
Experience with 3D footwear software or rendering tools is a plus, but taste, material understanding and execution ability matter more to us than software credentials.
You’ll Probably Love This Role If…
- You notice when a sneaker would look better with an off-white midsole instead of pure white.
- You can spend an unreasonable amount of time deciding between two slightly different shades of grey.
- You think about whether a shoe should use hairy suede, short-nap suede, mesh or leather — and understand how that decision completely changes the product.
- You regularly save sneakers, materials, color combinations and fashion references simply because something about them is interesting
That’s exactly the person we’re looking for.
What We’re NOT Looking For
- We’re not looking for someone whose portfolio consists only of conceptual footwear sketches.
- We’re also not looking for a graphic designer who simply knows how to change colors in Illustrator.
- We need someone who understands footwear as a physical product — how color, materials, construction and detailing work together and how a digital design eventually becomes a production sneaker.
A portfolio is mandatory.
We’d particularly like to see:
- Footwear you’ve designed or worked on.
- Colorway explorations.
- Material and texture experimentation.
- CMF/moodboards.
- Tech packs or factory-ready specifications.
- Samples or final products developed from your designs.
Bonus points if you can show us the journey from digital concept → sample → final product.
Click on Apply to know more.
