Creative Director: Visual & Design

Job Description

About us

At Shaped By, we believe there’s an unbreakable connection between creativity and tangible business results. We exist to help B2B-focused businesses uncover their authentic truth and become the boldest versions of themselves. As an agency, we put our people first – fostering a culture of respect, flexibility, and collaboration – while focusing on product before profit to ensure every creative output meets the highest standard.

Context

We’re in an exciting period of growth and team expansion. We’re evolving our working model within the creative studio to have multiple Creative Directors overseen by our Executive Creative Director. This is to meet the increasing demands on the studio and to recognise the different streams of specialisms and disciplines. This is a great opportunity to join the team and help shape our next chapter.

Required skills

Role overview

As Creative Director: Visual & Design you will provide project-level leadership, management and inspiration to the creative team for the realisation of fulfilling client briefs and delivering our broader creative strategies. You, on a day-to-day basis, own the visual conceptualisation and its execution on the agency’s most important and complex projects (often brand based), working in the detail and elevating the quality of the work you lead on — working to stay true to the brief, creative vision and standard set by the Executive Creative Director.

You oversee the design team and partner with the Creative Director: Concept & Verbal to deliver fully integrated work. This is a craft-and-delivery leadership role: you maintain the visual standard on your projects, run the team that shapes it, and take day-to-day creative delivery off the Executive Creative Director’s plate. Where appropriate you are happy to be hands-on with the work — to mentor the team, meet aggressive time-scales or course correct.

Reporting to Executive Creative Director and working seamlessly with the leaders from the Client Services team to ensure we are client centric in our methodology and working methods and fulfilling our ambitions while exceeding the expectations of our clients.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the visual and design execution end-to-end on the complex projects you are nominated for, owning the quality and delivery of that output working within the agency’s broader creative vision.
• Be present and engaged with the complexity and nuances of the daily work, working at speed to make the craft decisions and holding the visual standard across the projects you lead.
• Partner with the ‘Strategy Director’ and ‘Creative Director: Concept & Verbal’ to ensure that concept and craft come together as one integrated piece of work, taking the lead on projects nominated by the Executive Creative Director and touching base at key milestones to ensure alignment.
• Direct external partners and freelancers where required to deliver to the highest standard.
• Work with the delivery (account) track to ensure projects are scoped, resourced and delivered on brief, on time and on budget, protecting both quality and margin.
• Contribute strategic and creative insight that strengthens the agency’s competitive position. Identify creative opportunities to grow and deepen existing accounts.
• Act as the senior creative relationship on your accounts, building trusted, sustained and personable partnerships with key client stakeholders (CEO, CMO / VP Brand / Creative Directors / Demand Gen / Marketing leadership).
• Present work coherently and persuasively, and read the room to push back within projects and defend the strongest creative route — while protecting the relationship and where relevant notifying / escalating to the Executive Creative Director at moments of consequence.
• Lead the visual and design creative on pitches as the credible senior creative who will run the work if it is won, and identify creative opportunities to grow and deepen existing accounts.
• Own quality control and creative capacity across the design team, ensuring work ships to standard, on brief and on time.
• Line-manage the Design Director and lead the design team — running crits, setting standards, mentoring, and developing the craft and careers of the team.
• Work closely with CS leaders to ensure they are brought on the journey, are heard and the clients needs are front of mind and accurately represented in the work-flow and output / solutions.
• Foster a collaborative, high-standards studio culture, and support the recruitment and retention of design talent.
• Work with the delivery (account) track to ensure projects are scoped, resourced and delivered on brief, on time and on budget, protecting both quality and margin.
• Help ensure that Strategy, Design, Motion and Verbal systems are not silo’d and work as a unified creative force and solution.

• An outstanding visual and design portfolio, with a proven track record leading complex business projects.
• Deep understanding of the B2B tech sector and what makes brands in that market succeed.
• Comfortable multi-tasking and working to prioritise and manage complex work-flows within aggressive time-scales and agile sprints.
• Significant hands-on creative leadership experience, ideally including international / global brands within an agency environment.
• A track record of building and maintaining senior (CD, / CMO / C-suite) client relationships, with the confidence
  to challenge while protecting the relationship.
• Proven ability to lead and develop a multidisciplinary design team and work with / respect other disciplines from across the agency.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, able to sell creative to senior stakeholders.
• Commercially aware, with an understanding of recovery rates, scoping and margin, and able to meet a recovery-rate target.
• A healthy appetite to explore and engage with the possibilities of tech / innovation and AI to augment, support and enhance the nature of our work flows and optimise our outputs – but always inline with our people first value and aligned to our AI manifesto.

Benefits

What’s in it for you

• 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays and Christmas shutdown.
• Competitive salary with annual reviews.
• Company sick pay up to 5 days per year, otherwise statutory sick pay.
• Life assurance at 4x salary.
• Health cash plan (taxable benefit).
• Professional development budget of £500 per annum.
• Participation in the company reward scheme, subject to annual profitability targets.
• Tech scheme and cycle to work scheme (salary sacrifice).

The finer details

• This is hybrid role only – operating 2 days flexible working and 3 days studio time at Paintworks Bristol
• Working hours Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.30pm, with one hour available for lunch each day. 37 ½ hours per week

If you’d like to be the next Shapeling, we’d love to hear from you. Send your CV and your portfolio to [email protected] with a short note indicating what makes you tick about this role and help us get to know you.

Diversity, inclusion & belonging

At Shaped By, everyone is welcome and has the opportunity to get on. Fostering a diverse and inclusive culture is at the core of how we do business. It’s embedded in our core principles: People first and product before profit.

As part of these principles, we’re committed to supporting inclusion and diversity. Everyone is welcome and supported in their development at all stages in their journey with us.