Associate Creative Director, Design

Thermofisher Scientific; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Thermo Fisher Scientific in Birmingham seeks an Associate Creative Director (ACD) to lead a team of designers and drive the creative strategy across global marketing initiatives. Reporting to the Creative Director of Design, you will ensure design integrity and brand consistency while mentoring talent across regions.

You will oversee workflows, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and art-direct photography and video production for digital and print materials, keeping projects on schedule,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience in a creative field.
• 7–10 years in a user-focused creative environment within corporate or agency settings.
• Strong online portfolio demonstrating design across digital and print.
• Mastery of Adobe Creative Cloud and familiarity with Figma for prototyping.
• Experience integrating AI tools into the design process and managing print production.

Responsibilities

• Lead design thinking and shape the creative vision for marketing initiatives.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop concepts and prototypes.
• Oversee operations, ensuring on-time delivery and quality standards.
• Mentor a team of creative and production designers across levels.
• Art direct photography and video productions for multiple channels.
• Maintain brand guidelines and ensure consistency across programs.
• Stay current with industry trends and AI tools to improve quality.

Skills

Design leadership

Creative direction

Stakeholder management

Mentorship

Communication

Education

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent

Tools

Adobe Creative Cloud

Photoshop

Illustrator

InDesign

Figma

PowerPoint

Workfront

Jira

Confluence

Job description

We are seeking an Associate Creative Director (ACD), Design to join our Marketing team. This opportunity enables you to lead a team of talented designers while contributing to an extraordinary organization dedicated to making a global impact. Reporting to the Creative Director of Design, the Associate Creative Director (ACD) will help to manage and lead the creative process, ensuring thought leadership, continuity, and design integrity across multiple shared divisions and global marketing initiatives. Additionally, the ACD will manage and mentor a team of designers at various experience levels, both locally and internationally. Collaborating with cross-functional teams, the ACD will utilize a range of design tools and methodologies to create compelling, industry-leading marketing materials across various mediums while meeting deliverable expectations and ensuring adherence to timelines.,

Responsibilities

• Lead design thinking and serve as a creative thought leader alongside the Creative Director, helping shape the creative vision and strategy for marketing initiatives while ensuring flawless execution, brand consistency, and support for business growth.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define requirements and develop innovative creative concepts, comps, and high-fidelity prototypes from ideation through final delivery that meet business objectives and deliver measurable results.
• Oversee creative operations by helping coordinate workflows, ensuring projects are delivered on time, meet quality standards, and support efficient production across both strategic and fast-turnaround initiatives.
• Lead, develop, and mentor a team of creative and production designers while fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and high-performing creative environment that encourages innovation and industry-leading work.
• Partner with marketing operations and deployment teams, including digital marketing, web, and events, to ensure creative solutions align with established processes and deployment requirements.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders to ensure alignment between creative strategies and business objectives, proactively communicating recommendations, managing expectations, and fostering effective collaboration across teams.
• Collaborate with branding teams across the organization to ensure consistency across programs and initiatives while helping define, evolve, and maintain brand guidelines, design patterns, and usability standards.
• Art direct photography and video productions, helping evolve the creative vision while maintaining and enforcing visual standards throughout production.
• Lead and contribute to the design of marketing materials across digital and traditional channels, including but not limited to digital advertising, landing pages, websites, emails, social media, print collateral, catalogs, packaging, and reusable templates.
• Oversee the production, organization, and quality review of graphic assets for assigned business groups, ensuring all deliverables are proofed, quality assured, and production-ready before stakeholder delivery.
• Maintain exceptionally high creative and production standards while effectively managing multiple priorities and delivering high-quality work under tight deadlines.
• Stay current on industry trends, emerging technologies, and Artificial Intelligence tools, leveraging new capabilities to continuously improve creative quality, innovation, and production efficiency.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree and/or equivalent work experience.
• A minimum of 7-10 years of experience in a user-focused creative environment within a corporation or agency setting.
• A strong online portfolio demonstrating design innovation and expertise across both digital and print experiences.
• Demonstrated mastery of Adobe Creative Cloud, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, along with Microsoft Office (particularly PowerPoint, with expertise in crafting compelling presentation narratives and visually engaging executive-level storytelling) and design/prototyping tools such as Figma.
• Experience designing outstanding web-based and mobile products for a consumer-oriented organization.
• Experience utilizing and integrating various AI tools into the design process.
• Experience managing print production from concept through final execution, including color proofing, paper selection, and press checks.
• Experience art directing photography and videography productions.
• Experience designing for multiple devices with a strong understanding of responsive web design (RWD).
• Experience collaborating with creative professionals, UX/UI designers, marketers, merchandisers, product managers, project managers, and front-end developers.

Knowledge

• Expert knowledge of user-centered design principles, visual design trends, emerging web technologies, current UI and UX design patterns, and responsive/adaptive design best practices.
• Thorough understanding of digital marketing best practices, creative art direction, web design, and core graphic design principles.
• Knowledge of project planning and management tools, web analytics, and optimization techniques.
• Ability to quickly learn, utilize, and troubleshoot creative and collaboration tools such as Figma, Slack, Miro, etc.
• Working knowledge of project management platforms including Workfront, Jira, and Confluence.
• Familiarity with front-end web technologies including XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with a clear understanding of web capabilities and limitations.

Interpersonal Skills

• Advanced written and verbal communication skills.
• Confidence in delegating work and providing creative direction.
• Excellent organizational, communication, interpersonal, and time management skills.
• Advanced presentation, stakeholder management, and client relationship skills.
• Demonstrated enthusiasm for leadership, team development, and mentorship.
• Ability to remain composed under pressure while consistently meeting aggressive deadlines.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and adapt quickly to changing business needs and project demands.
• Strong empathy for end users with the ability to balance user needs and business objectives throughout the creative process.

Other Job Requirements

• Adhere to OHS policies and procedures and ensure a safe and healthy workplace environment.