Head of Design at Good Maven in Tokyo, Tokyo, JP

An opportunity with a rare combination of product design, brand, storytelling, creative direction, and even physical experience design, all coming together in one.

About Spacecurve

Spacecurve is a Tokyo-based venture creation and product development firm building four vision-driven companies across software, interior design, fashion, and destinations. Our core mission is to create truly new product experiences designed for cult virality and maximum emotional impact.

Key brands include Psy Living (a hybrid luxury fashion, interior design, and lifestyle ecosystem) and Migaku (a next-gen language learning platform).

The Opportunity

This is a rare opportunity to work across a deeply creative and visionary group of products at a formative stage. It is the antithesis of big tech: you’ll collaborate with fashion designers, textile designers, mechanical and electrical engineers, and creative directors, all working in largely uncharted territory, alongside a founder who cultivates the space and funding for innovative work.

We’re looking for a Head of Design to lead design across one or both of two brands within the portfolio, depending on your background:

• Psy Living: Hybrid luxury interior design and fashion lifestyle brand. Blending a new class of robotics-adjacent industrial design with luxury European heritage and Japanese streetwear-inspired fashion to create a radically forward-looking message of optimism.
• Migaku: Exceptionally effective language learning product with a devoted 20k+ strong Discord community, built by a team of hardcore language learners. Currently being reimagined from the ground up based on our unique insights into language acquisition psychology.

This is a senior role for someone who can combine taste, range, and judgment with a strong ability to execute. You might come from product design, brand design, visual design, or creative direction, but you’ll need to think holistically, work fluidly across disciplines, and contribute design work yourself.

What you’ll do

• Lead design for Migaku, Psy Living, or both, depending on fit
• Use your exceptional storytelling and branding abilities to explain our unique product vision to customers all over the world
• Shape brand, product, and visual direction into a coherent whole
• Turn ambitious ideas into clear, compelling experiences and outputs
• Work across product, identity, campaigns, storytelling, and physical or digital touchpoints
• Contribute directly as a player and coach, while also directing collaborators
• Partner closely with the Founder & CEO to set vision, and cross-functional teams across design, engineering, and production to execute

What we’re looking for

• Significant experience in a senior design leadership role
• A strong portfolio showing exceptional work across product, brand, visual design, or creative direction in complex product spaces, e.g. hardware, software, fashion
• The ability to move between strategy and craft
• Strong creative judgment and a clear point of view
• Experience building from scratch or helping shape something at an early stage
• Comfort working across ambiguity, disciplines, and formats

Requirements

• 5+ years of work experience with Design Leadership
• 10+ years of work experience with Software Design

You may be especially relevant if you bring

• For Migaku: Deep digital product design expertise, especially for consumer software. Cross-functional understanding between branding and product is a huge plus, for example: how can we design a UI optimized for growth and also viral potential when shown on social media shorts?
• For Psy Living: Deep visual graphic design expertise to craft a compelling, colorful, and timeless brand universe around our unique product lineup. Analog design talent to draw with a pen is a huge plus
• Experience working across both digital and physical expressions of a brand
• A multidisciplinary approach that connects product, story, identity, and environment
• Have a strong understanding of global design aesthetics, and know how to thoughtfully balance or push each when appropriate
• Understanding of Japanese design aesthetics and trends a big plus

Working style

Ideally, we’d love to have this person in Tokyo to work on-site in our state of the art studio. However, there may be some flexibility on location.

For Migaku, one third of the current team is located in Tokyo so ideally we’d have the Head of Design there as well. However, there’s flexibility on location: remote APAC or EMEA can work, with a preference for regular overlap with Asia-based working hours.

For Psy Living, there is a strong preference for working on site at our Tokyo/Ebisu design studio, given the hands-on nature of the team and our physical product lineup

Why join

• This is a chance to help shape something unusually ambitious at an early stage, alongside a highly creative team working across software, objects, spaces, and experiences
• Migaku increased revenue 10x over the past year and plans to do the same again over the coming 12 months, so this is a unique opportunity to experience the early stage of a growing startup
• Psy Living aims to launch its Japan flagship store in 12 months from now in Aoyama, the heart of Tokyo’s modern fashion center
• We will provide you with all the tools and opportunities needed to make a lasting impact on our mission and the Japanese and global design landscape
• You will be part of a high-trust community that encourages risk-taking, experimentation and innovation
• You will be working alongside ambitious executors and creatives from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines