Creative Lead

Craft Agency Ltd; Manchester; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Private medical insurance

26 days holiday + bank holidays

Great training & development opportuni

Job summary

Craft Agency Ltd in Manchester is looking for a Senior Brand Designer to join a strategy-led studio that focuses on concept work, brand systems and high-level thinking. You’ll shape ideas with strategists, influence briefs from the start and guide a network of freelancers on motion and digital from concept to delivery.

The role blends brand, campaign and recurring commission work for a national postal institution, with hybrid working, private medical insurance and strong training opportunities.

Qualifications

• Must be a conceptual Brand Designer with several years in a strategy-led shop.
• Ability to think in brand systems and influence strategic conversations.
• Experience presenting to clients, including C-suite stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Input briefs from the outset and shape thinking for clients.
• Present thinking to clients, stakehholders and direct a network of freelancers on motion and digital.
• Develop brand concepts across brand, campaign and motion/digital from conception.

Skills

Brand strategy

Brand systems

Client presentation

Freelancer management

Job description

This is an independent brand agency that works almost exclusively at concept and brand level. It's pure strategic thinking and branding design work, no artworking rollout. Freelancers absorb motion and digital execution. What's left for a Senior Designer is the part most people got into this work to do: the thinking.

Backed by real momentum, this studio has just posted its most profitable year on record, with a recent appointment to brand a high-profile international research institution founded by one of the world's best-known technology figures.

The Role

You'd be the third senior creative voice in the studio, developing brand concepts alongside two senior strategists – so the strategic conversation is genuinely substantive, not a hand-off.

You’ll input into client briefs from the outset, present thinking to clients, C-suite stakeholders, and direct a network of freelancers on motion and digital by briefing strategic intent rather than handling production yourself. The work spans brand, campaign, and a significant recurring specialist commission for a national postal institution, and motion and digital is built into your concepts from conception.

The Package

• £45,000 - £55,000
• Hybrid working
• Private medical insurance
• 26 days holiday + bank holidays
• Great training & development opportunities

The Person

You're a conceptual Brand Designer several years into your career, currently at a strategy-led shop where ideas, not delivery, are the core of the job. You think in brand systems, sit comfortably alongside strategists, and carry a digital and motion lens natively without needing to execute it yourself. You're developing genuine client-facing presence and want work where your ideas visibly shaped the outcome.