Design Director

Job Description

At Armadillo we connect data, technology and creativity to build inspirational CRM that supercharges relationships between brands and individuals. We work with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Disney, McDonald’s, P&O Cruises and Cunard – and that list is growing.

We believe in the long-term success that comes from always putting the best interests of our clients and the well-being and progression of our staff at the heart of everything we do. Our aim is to become the UK’s most recommended CRM agency: the one everyone wants to work with or for.

We are now on the look out for a Design Director to join our Creative team, to help deliver excellent work and nurture a team of multidisciplinary Designers to produce beautifully creative and effective CRM campaigns across both digital and print.

We love working with passionate and enthusiastic people, and that’s what we’re looking for in our Design Director. As part of the role you would be responsible for:

• Leading the Creative output of your discipline team (Print and Digital Designers) and supporting the professional development of team members within the discipline

• Understanding how brands behave, learning guidelines inside out and implementing them, or suggesting the evolution of guidelines

• Creating design concepts that aim to meet and exceed project performance goals, and ladder up to client goals

• Creating innovative and engaging design solutions, whether responsive digital design solutions or bespoke print formats, that demonstrate an understanding of the content hierarchy

• Demonstrating excellent design skills in layout, typography and image creation/manipulation (vector based illustrations or photographic manipulation), and critiquing the layouts by creatives in your discipline team

• Creating innovative clear and engaging UI elements, including interactivity that can be measured for efficacy

• Bringing content to life with animations by creating clear storyboards and, ideally, generating high-quality animated content

• Demonstrating how a user will move through communications (within and between campaigns), whether single or multiple emails, DM, web, push, and app, using wireframes or low-fi designs.

• Leading the delivery of client strategy and data goals, presenting your solutions with rationales that demonstrate how your work can influence those goals

• Presenting your work with enthusiasm, gravitas, and clarity when in person, and translating that into presentation decks with helpful ordering and annotations when work is sent digitally.

At Armadillo, we are a collaborative team, so you will also need to work closely with employees in various departments throughout the agency, maintaining excellent working relationships with colleagues at all levels.

Required skills

We are looking for a strong communicator who will be able to effectively communicate project status updates, and support in knowledge sharing within your discipline and throughout the agency. A Design Director at Armadillo should be ambitious, motivated and driven, and constantly looking to improve the quality of their work – does that sound like you?

Some requirements for this role are:

• Agency experience – being familiar with a fast-paced environment and the cross-discipline collaboration it requires

• Experience of managing a team

• Expert-level experience of using Adobe Creative Cloud, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Figma

• Skills in After Effects, Microsoft (Word, PPT & Excel) and the Google equivalents

• Understanding of Harvest, Trello and Forecast are desirable but can be taught

As well as this, it would be beneficial for you to understand the basics of CRM, including some of the channels used (email, web, push, app and DM) and the principles behind CRM, including affinity, loyalty, and the importance of handling customer data.

Benefits

At Armadillo, we truly appreciate the hard work & dedication of our employees, and so we offer the following benefits to all Armadillos:

• Hybrid working environment – 2 days in our central Bristol office / 3 days optional days

• 25 days’ annual leave plus a day off on your birthday, increasing by 1 day per annum at each year anniversary up to 30 days, plus bank holidays

• Summer and Christmas hours – finish 2.5 hours early one Friday per month in June, July, August and December

• Contributory company pension 4% employee 3% employer of total pay through salary sacrifice, escalating 1% each year following your 2nd anniversary at Armadillo, up to 8% employer contribution

• Relocation package

• Bupa dental care & Vitality health insurance

• Lots of social events, including Summer and Christmas parties

• Cycle to work scheme

• Employee Assistance Programme offered by Assured Health

• IPA Membership & Bristol Creative Industries Membership

We are also committed to creating a diverse workforce and environment, so all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment at Armadillo, regardless of race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origins, genetics, disability or age.