Design Director

Full time, 9am – 5.30pm Monday to Friday (hybrid)

Start date: ASAP

Benefits:

• Wellbeing-focussed workplace
• 26 days holiday (+ Bank Holidays)
• Hybrid working (currently Tues, Weds, Thurs in the studio)
• Work-from-home kit allowance
• On-site Mental Health First Aiders
• Personal development scheme
• Annual training allowance
• Ongoing in-house training programme
• MacBook Pro
• 10% commission on new business introductions
• Free office parking
• Free events, including Openhouse, Leeds International Festival, talks and more
• Free fortnightly team lunches
• Tax-efficient Cycle to Work scheme
• Access to our extensive library, including topics such as personal development, strategy, design, health and wellbeing

Employee assistance programme offering:

• 24/7 confidential advice line for health, legal and bereavement support (and loads more)
• Free counselling for you, plus your partner and/or children if you have them

About this role

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We are looking for a Design Director to help lead our award-winning creative team — someone who can drive strategic creative thinking, inspire and motivate our talented designers with ideas-led work, and build our position as a world-class brand transformation consultancy for health-led organisations through exceptional design work and leadership.

Armed with 7+ years’ experience at top agencies, you should have held Senior Designer position(s) with a proven track record of developing and delivering stand-out / award winning brand and campaign design projects across multiple channels including digital. You will be interested in and understand business and consumer behaviour. You should be comfortable being both hands on as well as directing projects through the studio.

This role is pivotal in ensuring the quality of strategic design thinking within the project team. You’ll collaborate closely with the Creative and Strategy Director to challenge and enhance creative briefs, providing clear and inspirational direction for the team. As the champion of your own projects, you'll lead with autonomy and confidence, making critical judgments and producing insightful creative solutions. Your eye for detail and care for craft set you apart.

Your creativity and leadership will contribute to the growth of our business through the development of long-term client relationships. With excellent people skills and a pro-active, positive, dedicated attitude, you'll be the driving force behind challenging creative solutions.

The role demands a natural enthusiasm for storytelling, a solid understanding of what makes a great idea, the ability to develop captivating visual identities and campaigns and an understanding of how client objectives can be achieved in a multi-channel way. A fantastic portfolio of projects with a variety of clients is a must. Projects in the health and wellbeing space are not essential.

On top of these design credentials, we’re looking for someone with initiative, eager to proactively contribute to our team, as well as support creative innovation across the company. Work will comprise of brand and campaign identity design and development, rollout, website and application design, campaign content, print and environmental design. The ability to bring your designs to life with motion graphics or moving image/video would be a bonus.

Responsibilities include:

• Generating insightful, effective big ideas that get us and our clients excited, build our profile and win us awards
• Leading the team across a variety of brand, design and campaign projects with autonomy, from kick-off to delivery
• Challenging your own creative work as well as that of others, guiding the team through creative development and refinement rooted in brand strategy
• Proactively developing the junior and mid-weight members of the team
• Driving forward and delivering the creative vision for the agency in partnership with the Creative Director
• Supporting the prioritisation of design work with the Client Services team
• Driving consistently high standards and creative approaches, embedding best practise throughout the wider team and freelance network
• Reviewing the work of external partners to ensure high standards, treating them as an extension of your team
• Ensuring projects are delivered to appropriate accessibility standards and educating the business on accessible approaches to design
• Seeking out emerging talent and championing suitability for placements and internships
• Supporting business development opportunities
• Working alongside client services colleagues to grow and develop accounts using creative ideas with expansive potential
• Building the profile of the agency by delivering marketing content, attending events, networking and speaking engagements
• Maintaining the quality and perception of the ThreeTenSeven brand both internally and externally

Key behaviours:

• Role model and leads by example, proactively seeking feedback, self-motivated, can act with autonomy and shows good initiative
• Always strives for the best idea and doesn’t settle for compromises
• Flexible, diplomatic and tactful with a matter-of-fact approach to resolving design challenges with both the internal teams and our clients
• Can act as a central resource for design knowledge and understanding
• Ability to work under pressure to tight deadlines, raising any issues in a timely manner to keep projects running smoothly to time and budget
• Always on the lookout for business development opportunities
• Commercially aware, can work to budgets and able to adapt to the needs of the business
• Has initiative to self-develop and stay on top of industry news, trends and insight, leading to ongoing personal and technical improvement
• Analytical and inquisitive, with an appetite to introduce new ideas, techniques, and practices
• Can perform well in a fast-paced environment whilst maintaining excellent standards and attention to detail
• Reliable, flexible, and cooperative, a team player
• Approachable and personable, with an enthusiastic can-do and motivational nature and overall passion for excellence
• Embody the values of the business both inside work and out

ThreeTenSeven and our ethos:

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ThreeTenSeven is a brand transformation consultancy based in North Leeds. We’re leaders in brand for wellbeing, working across a range of sectors including health, wellness charity/not for profit and higher education.

We’ve been around for a long time, so we have great clients and a great reputation, but the management team is young(ish) and dedicated to do things differently. We support remote and flexible working, promote local businesses, champion women in the boardroom and LGBTQIA+ rights in the business. We work hard to be ethical and eco-active. We don’t believe in asking anyone to work for free, even at the start of their careers, so only offer paid Living Wage internships. Our event series, Openhouse, helps us find inspiration in the most remote corners, and helps us cook up new ideas and partnerships.

The creative industries can be busy and sometimes stressful and it’s true, we work hard, but we work just as hard at creating a fair, open culture, and welcome feedback from everyone to get us there. We talk about our wellbeing and encourage others to do the same. We take a flat structure approach to project assignments; it’s about the best mix of skills, as well as helping people to pursue their own interests and aspirations.

ThreeTenSeven believes in promoting inclusion and diversity and in helping combat systemic racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. We try hard to use our voice and business to actively make a change in the wider world, not just in the creative world. That’s in who we choose to work with, in the way we speak to the world, our creative work, and the way we hire. We’re not perfect – who is? – but we’re getting better all the time.