Senior Designer

Us

We’re a Global Brand Design Agency, we work with multinational CPG's all over the world to create brand value that drives growth. Our clients include some of the biggest names in the business - Pepsi-Co, Mars Wrigley, Bayer Consumer Healthcare and Hasbro, to name a few. We also work with smaller challenger brands, creating and reinventing them for long term success. Headquartered in Fitzrovia, central London, we have ambitions to open a new studio in Chicago for our US client base.

We are independent and values lead, which means ‘what’ we do is as important as ‘how’ we do it. Values are our cornerstone – our values and the values we help others articulate through our work as Brand Designers. We value good leadership, strong creativity, mutuality and integrity in all that we do, and working with people who appreciate the same.

You

You are a senior designer with over 5 years’ experience and keen to take the next step in your creative career. You will already know the importance of client relationships and their brand world, business challenges and ambitions. You are proactive, a strategic thinker and always seeking the best possible creative solution with a deep understanding of brand from all dimensions. You’re impossibly curious with an expansive frame of reference and keen to share your knowledge and skills with junior members of the team. Ambitious to grow your leadership skills, and the confidence and flair to create and guide great presentations, with a thorough understanding of the creative and commercial value of brand.

Your skills

• Over 5 years’ experience working in a brand design agency with up to 3 of these years at senior level

• Driven and inspirational creative thinker with strategic dexterity

• Comprehensive understanding of the creative and commercial context of brands and markets they work in to produce positive solutions for the brand eco-system

• An expansive frame of reference (broad knowledge base, external collaborators, inspiration sources etc) to explore and recommend ways to best celebrate the uniqueness of brands

• Able to confidently engage in the debate on creative work by expressing a clear view based on brand and brief

• Clear understanding of the commercial realities of your projects

• Excellent communication and people skills

• A thorough understanding of IT issues as they relate to the creative process

• A high level of emotional intelligence with the ability to perceive/ connect different perspectives

The Role

Based out of our Central London Studio, reporting to our Creative Director, you will have responsibility and ownership of all your projects with a clear strategic and creative understanding. Current projects include brand positioning, architecture, innovation, creation, renovation (identity & packaging re-design), sub-brand range extensions, activation (social content & in-store), guidelines/playbooks, internal branding & communication, plus animation & video.

Areas of responsibility

• Produce exceptional design solutions, which are the best possible response to a brief

• Work with the client team to ensure that the creative brief is challenged and challenging providing the team with a clear and inspirational direction for the work

• Actively look for opportunities to leverage the creative work throughout the brand eco-system to expand the brief

• Recognise the importance of client relationships and engaging with clients to support and understand their brands / business, challenges, and ambitions

• Active member of research groups, debriefs, presentations and client workshops

• Proactively share knowledge and skills with junior team members

• Always staying current, suggesting new ways of working and tools to improve the studio workflow.

• A good working understanding of the production process ensuring that design proposals can be implemented

• Provide direction for more junior members of the team ensuring that all work presented is on brief and in line with Straight Forward’s values

• Provide total support to the Creative Director showing clear leadership to the team

• Provide input to the Client Team and Design Leadership to enable them to establish realistic budgets and timescales at the outset of the project/phase of work

• Report to the Client Team and Design Leadership on the status of your projects

• Ensure work is presented professionally and with conviction, supported by a clear rationale and recommendation

• Be able to manage up and down as required and be a great communicator to the senior management team and a fantastic mentor to juniors

• Take an empathetic approach to leadership and management encouraging collaboration and growth in-line with agency values

• Proactively champion Connect in Full - Found, Understood, Loved, Lived - as a way of commutating and thinking

• Have good financial awareness of profitability and targets across your projects and the business

• Key contributor to the welfare, health and atmosphere of the agency as a whole

• Enable clarity and add value in all you do

Our Benefits & Perks

• Values led business

• 32 days annual leave, inclusive of public holidays, with the option to buy/sell 5 days

• Private medical care

• Life assurance

• Discretionary pension and bonus scheme

• Enhanced maternity benefits

• Hybrid working model - currently 3 days in, 2 days remote

• Career Development Programme

• Education and training allowance

• Cycle to work scheme; childcare voucher scheme; Save As You Earn scheme

• Monthly cultural & social events

• Tate Membership