Art Director - Graphic Designer

Art Director - Graphic Designer

Salary: £45,000 Per Annum (Pro Rata based on days per week)

Role Type: Part or Full time (We will consider applicants seeking 3, 4, or 5 days per week)

Contract: Fixed Term – 1 Year (Maternity Cover)

Location: Hybrid - London / Home

Studio location: St Bride Foundation, 14 Bride Lane, London, EC4Y 8EQ

Annual leave: 25 days + bank holidays (Pro Rata based on days per week)

Reporting to: Directors

About The Liminal Space

We are a purpose-led creative studio that translates some of the toughest issues facing our society today into tangible and engaging objects, spaces and experiences. Our aim is to empower people to actively participate in developing positive social and health outcomes within their communities.

Our multidisciplinary team works with organisations that are excited about exploring new ways of engaging audiences, generating research insights and solving strategic challenges. These include some of the country’s top universities, independent funders and government bodies such as The Wellcome Trust, Nesta, The Francis Crick Institute, The Health Foundation, The Barbican, The Natural History Museum, UCL and The University of Cambridge. Our work has led to us being shortlisted as Emerging Design Studio of the Year 2020 by Dezeen, and receiving a Wellcome Trust Sustaining Excellence grant.

About This Role

The role of Art Director-Graphic Designer requires creativity, flexibility, lateral-thinking and the ability to embrace uncertainty - and open-ended briefs. A willingness and the capability to work outside your comfort zone and across diverse materials and formats is essential.

No two days are ever the same. You could be trying to embed research about AI-enabled surgery into a ball pit one day and designing a visual voting mechanism using 100 ping pong balls the next, all while laying out the packaging for a fictional egg freezing company.

As we’re a small team, you’ll be expected to work on projects from concept to design, production and delivery, collaborating with the directors, project managers and creative team along the way. Sometimes you’ll be managing others who are delivering the work, but often it will be you from start to finish. We imagine the role is approximately 60% art direction and 40% hands-on graphic design - but you’ll be flexible enough to slip seamlessly between the two.

Some examples of the work you might be delivering include:

Night Club:

• Developing a bright and bold visual identity, including colour palette, typography and image treatments, inspired by warehouse environments. The identity had to be flexible enough to be used across a really wide range of assets, including exhibitions, posters, socials, products, pop-ups, films, online training assets, printed publications and more…
• Updating the identity over time, following feedback from the audience and learnings from project rollouts

Future of Space:

• Working with the Content Lead to translate the research around the Future of Space into a range of 2D and 3D props, to be used to stimulate conversation in workshop sessions
• Drawing on a range of visual reference points to design a range of props, ensuring these are engaging and understandable to audiences. (Sometimes this work includes more direct visual references – working in the realm of fakes and pastiche)
• Working with the Producer to execute the props to a high standard

Departure Lounge:

• Working with the Creative Director to create an appropriate and engaging visual identity for a sensitive project around death and dying
• Working with the 3D designer to apply this visual concept across a range of exhibition outputs, including large 3D sculptural pieces, wayfinding and window design.
• Applying the identity across printed takeaways, exhibition props, website, socials and more

Mindsets + Missions:

• Developing a fun and flexible visual identity for a suite of workshop elements, designed to stimulate deep discussion around the future of museums
• Working with the Content Lead and Creative Director to propose forms and formats for the workshop to ensure the graphic elements are supporting and facilitating an engaging, accessible and creative experience

Your Key Responsibilities

Take the lead

• Work with the creative director to develop a project, both creatively and conceptually.
• Hold the creative vision across the project.
• Ensure multiple creative elements come together to achieve the project vision.
• Present the look, feel and detailed design to clients, and manage design feedback.
• Brief the internal creative team and creative freelancers.

Shape the visual identity

• Create the look and feel of a project, including colour palette, typography, image treatment etc.
• Apply visual identity across a range of graphic outputs, including print, exhibition / spatial, editorial and digital, ensuring accessibility, cohesion and visual impact

Collaborate effortlessly

• Liaise with the Producer/Production Manager and work with 2D and 3D designers to ensure a realistic production timeline.
• Work closely with 3D designer/developer/film maker to specify [eg. size, location and materiality] and deliver a wide range of creative project outputs
• Direct photographers to capture a project for use on socials, web and external communications.
• Provide materials to showcase a completed project for website and socials.

Maintain excellence

• Provide feedback on work created by freelance and internal designers.
• Sign-off all artwork from the design side.
• Artwork for print production, including specifying materials and finish and working closely with suppliers to ensure high quality outputs.

About You

You are:

• Passionate about the possibilities of art and design as tools to enable change.
• Brimming with creative energy, insight and ideas.
• Able to demonstrate a thoughtful approach to audience experience and accessibility across multiple outputs.
• Eager to see a project through from start to finish.
• Excited by a challenge and the idea that no two projects you work on will be the same.
• Cool-headed in the face of looming deadlines, client feedback and unforeseen hurdles, and good at managing multiple demands on your time.
• Highly collaborative and happy to work closely with our directors, project managers and creative team.
• Keen to be part of a purpose-led company that works to make society better.

Your experience:

• You have at least 8 years professional experience creating bold and impactful visual identities and applying them across a range of outputs, including working closely and collaboratively within a team to execute projects to the highest quality. Minimum 4 years professional graphic design experience required.
• You are fluent in Adobe software (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop,) and demonstrate professional levels of execution across formats, particularly print. Desirable experience also includes Figma, Premier, Squarespace and Readymag.
• You have worked closely with design support, freelancers and suppliers to bring complex, multifaceted creative projects to life. Direct line management experience is desirable but not required.
• You are able to artwork to a professional standard across physical and digital outputs, working with suppliers to achieve high quality outputs.

What We Offer

• A caring & supportive workplace, with a hybrid work pattern.
• A sociable and friendly atmosphere, with regular activities organised for both our core team and our extended family of freelancers.
• 25 days annual holiday allowance plus bank holidays.
• A studio in central London near St Paul’s with excellent travel links.
• Support available for learning and development.
• The opportunity to work and lead on projects with a real social purpose at their heart.