Freelance Product Designer for Physical Products (Cards, Journals, Keepsakes)

About Paired

At Paired, we're on a mission to help romantic couples stay in love. So we created a fun, safe space for couples to explore their relationship and grow together. Backed by expert advice and cutting-edge research, our app delivers engaging questions, games, and quizzes that improve key relationship skills in just minutes each day.

And it works. Our app is the #1 couples app globally with +12M downloads, +200,000 daily active users, and more than £5M of fundraising to date. We've won multiple awards from Apple and Google, recognising us for our innovative approach to romantic relationship health.

Building on that success, we're now expanding beyond digital into physical products - like card decks, journals, guided activity books, gifts - that bring the same relationship-building principles into the real world. These products are designed to complement the app and offer couples even more meaningful ways to connect offline.

Work Setup and Compensation

• This is a remote freelance role, open to candidates based in the USA, UK, or EU

• Collaboration: You'll work closely with our Ecommerce team as part of a distributed setup

• Working hours: 20+ hours per week

• Duration: Ongoing

• Compensation:

• $30-$50 per hour (USA)

• £25-£40 per hour (UK)

• €25-€45 per hour (EU)

About The Role

We're looking for a talented product designer to collaborate with us on a range of meaningful and playful physical products. These products are designed to help couples feel more connected, intentional, and in sync.

This is an ongoing project with multiple ideas in the pipeline. You'll help us bring early-stage concepts to life by transforming rough sketches and creative prompts into polished, manufacturable products and packaging that feel thoughtful, premium, and gift-worthy.

What Your Role Encompasses

• Helping concept and shape new physical product ideas
• Developing form factors, dielines, and packaging systems with a strong eye for the unboxing and gifting experience
• Designing layouts for cards, inserts, and companion materials that are both beautiful and functional
• Creating 3D mockups and production-ready files that are manufacturer-friendly
• Collaborating with the team to explore materials, finishes, and tactile details to elevate the product
• Support user testing by creating prototypes and incorporating early feedback
• Contribute to product vision and roadmap discussion to ensure design aligns with brand and solves real customer problems

Requirements

• Has experience designing consumer physical products, especially stationery, card games, journals, and/or gifts
• Understand how great design and great strategy go hand in hand
• Can move comfortably from early-stage creative ideation to production-ready execution
• Has a solid understanding of printing, packaging, and manufacturing process
• Has a great eye for detail and visual storytelling, with experience in layout, typography, and packaging systems
• Brings strong taste and strategic thinking to the table, but isn't precious about iterating based on feedback.
• Can collaborate closely with both creative and operational teams members (think copywriters, brand designers, marketing managers)
• Has proficiency in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign (experience with 3D tools is a bonus)
• Bonus: experience in building systems for scalable product lines or giftable retail packaging

Hiring process

• 1st call with our Head of Ecommerce
• Paid task: Showcase your skills by completing a task and presenting it to our Head of Ecommerce and Head of Design
• Team interviews: The final step involves interviews with different team members you would be working with on this project
• Offer

Diversity & Inclusion at Paired

• Our core value is championing relationships. Our app was built to serve all couples regardless of culture, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity
• We strive to create an inclusive environment where unique perspectives are encouraged, as we firmly believe that diversity enhances our company, culture and product
• We regularly review our hiring processes, materials and pipeline to ensure they are accessible and free of bias, offering equal opportunity to underrepresented groups. We are also always learning. We maintain open minds and welcome feedback on how we can improve, no matter where it comes from