Art Director Bristol

This is a full-time, permanent role in our Bristol office. You will be working in one of our ‘pods’, our client-focused, mini ‘business units’ (read Giles’ blog about pods here)

We’re looking for an Art Director to help us create innovative and appropriate digital experiences that make a real difference to people’s lives. You will work collaboratively in a cross-functional, agile team with researchers, interaction designers, technologists, project managers and clients to research and produce innovative design solutions.

• Comfortable presenting your work and rationale to both clients and internal teams.
• Capable of running effective workshops and working closely with clients.
• Experienced in mentoring and leading junior designers.

1. Collaborate with our project teams and lead the design stream of our clients’ projects through the full design lifecycle. This will include helping to facilitate kick-off meetings, running workshops, analysing initial research, concepting and sketching, producing design templates and patterns, documenting visual style guides (including colour palettes, typographical hierarchy, font style and image usage), validating design work with people.
2. Interpret our clients’ brand guidelines into digital design and develop their brand identity across digital channels. You’ll be leading the design concepting of our projects (from visual design ideas to dummy brands and brand enhancement), coming up with ideas and pushing the client’s brand where appropriate.
3. Produce and document visual design templates and patterns for our clients. In the main, you will be working with developers to ensure the quality of our designs and prototypes is maintained throughout the production workflow, and that their development teams have everything they need. We’re looking for someone who can build strong relationships within the team, can grasp what is required, and deliver it efficiently and on time.
4. Explain and rationalise the decisions that informed your designs (both internally and to our client), articulating the thought processes that you went through and foreseeing likely issues. We’ll need you to demonstrate a good manner; you’ll be thoughtful, measured, persuasive and good at listening. We’re looking for someone able to both accept and offer critique, and able to react to it in a positive and constructive way.
5. Ensure that all reports, presentations (including, for example, infographics, data visualisation, iconography) and documentation produced by our team are of the highest quality.
6. Assist in finding suitable freelance Designers to support projects at peak times and provide support and guidance to them from a Visual Design practitioner perspective.

• Experience of designing beautiful, purposeful user interfaces for websites and apps of all shapes and sizes.
• Experience of creating brand identities and accompanying guidelines. An enthusiasm for delving into the rationale behind your work.
• Examples of where you have led design projects and set a creative direction that has been taken through to production.
• Experience of either presenting at industry events or writing about design.
• 8 years experience in the industry and/or tip-top design qualifications.

You’ll have significant experience in Sketch and Adobe Creative Suite – including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign. Experience with Keynote and animation software is favourable.

This is a great opportunity for a skilled designer to work alongside our Senior Art Director within a friendly, world-class team. Our work is used by millions of people every year.

We’re a great place to work – you’ll love the environment, the people and the way the company looks after its staff. You’ll also get: a great package with 25 days holiday, benefits including a smartphone, a cash-back healthcare scheme, a pension plan to which we’ll contribute, a MacBook and other kit as needed.

cxpartners are committed to training and run an extensive training programme which will support both your individual needs and our business ambitions.

If you’d like to apply, please email danielle.sullivan@cxpartners.co.uk with a brief CV and portfolio. Please also tell us something about your interest in design.

No agencies please.