Design Director

SOCIO is looking for a Design Director to lead brand projects, nurture a talented design team, and deliver exceptional and inspiring creative outcomes for clients.

Working closely with the Creative Directors and your team, you will shape the vision of the work the studio creates and ensure quality and creative ambition is met for each project.

As a Design Director, you’ll naturally have an incredible eye for detail, vast technical knowledge and inspire the team with your strategic and conceptual thinking. You’ll have a deep passion for design, typography, art direction and broader culture.

Responsibilities

Project Leadership

• Oversee design projects from conception to completion, ensuring high-quality outcomes
• Coordinate and work closely with your team of designers to deliver exceptional work within the allocated timelines
• Provide guidance to your team and confidently edit and curate the team’s work and your own
• Translate strategic principles into effective and innovative design solutions appropriate for the client
• Ability to direct and oversee multiple creative projects simultaneously

Design Execution

• Personally contribute to your team’s design work
• Work on smaller scale brand projects autonomously when necessary, across strategic thinking, design and delivery
• Craft compelling presentations with a clear narrative, connecting strategic insights to creative outcomes
• Champion a passion for typography, photography, and culture within the team
• Be a wealth of design knowledge and have an eye for detail across all aspects of the design process
• Contribute to the delivery of case studies for the studio’s project work

Client Engagement

• Present creative ideas confidently to clients, ranging from small to large groups of people
• Articulate the value and strategic intent behind designs, encouraging clients to make creative leaps
• Establish strong client relationships through building rapport, excellent communication and inspiring them with the creative vision

Team Development

• Mentor and develop the skills of other designers, fostering growth and creativity
• Cultivate an environment that encourages collaboration and maximises the team’s creative potential

Operational Oversight

• Collaborate with project managers to allocate resource on your projects, ensuring timelines, budgets, and project milestones are met
• Maintain a balance between creative ambition and practical project requirements

Key requirements

• 7+ years design experience
• Demonstrated ability to lead, inspire and manage design teams
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate design tasks and sell ideas both internally and externally
• Proven experience working directly on brand-focused design projects and further deliverables such as packaging and digital design
• A deep passion for typography, photography, fashion and cultural trends
• Experience in translating strategic insights into impactful design solutions
• Ability to deeply understand client needs and translate these into compelling solutions that resonate with their intended audiences
• Strong collaboration and organisational skills, particularly working with project managers to validate timelines and budgets
• Extensive technical knowledge across the design process, in particularly across Figma presentation building and Adobe CC for design and art-working for print
• Software: Figma, Adobe CC, Notion
• Bonus: Art direction, 3D or AI visualisation skills, Animation, Editorial design, Glyphs for custom type design

Details

• Salary dependent on experience
• Permanent position with a six-month probationary period
• Hybrid working: 2 days in the studio, 3 days from home.
• Our studio is based in London’s Design District located in North Greenwich. Design District offers a number of amenities including a cafe, food stalls and a basketball court
• 31 days annual leave, including UK bank holidays
• Employees receive an additional day of annual leave on their birthday
• Annual work place pension
• Private healthcare scheme (conditions apply)
• Annual team retreat to foster collaboration, innovation, and team bonding

About SOCIO

For over 20 years SOCIO has delivered a wide variety of projects, from small and large brands to campaigns, packaging and digital experiences. We work with a variety of international clients, within the sectors of wellbeing, health and fitness and premium lifestyle products.

We have a small tight-knit team of curious and creative designers, typographers and digital designers. We all share a vision to amplify ideas that matter and build brands that inspire change.