Associate Design Director; Maternity Cover

Position: Associate Design Director (12 Months Maternity Cover)
DEPT® is a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, our 4,000+ specialists deliver growth invention services across Brand & Media, Experience, Commerce, CRM, and Technology & Data. We’re 50|50 tech and marketing, partner‑led, and first to move. Clients include Google, Lufthansa, Meta, eBay, and OpenAI.

We have been certified B Corp and Climate Neutral since 2021.

Job Purpose:

This position sits in our Marketing & Technology service based in London. We combine data, technology, creative and paid media to crack brands’ business problems and drive revenue through a variety of digital marketing solutions such as social, influencer, TTL ad campaigns, augmented reality, AI and innovation. Our clients include eBay, easy

Jet, Just Eat Takeaway and Pepsico. The Associate Design Director is a key creative lead and escalation point within the design team, providing strong design direction, oversight, and mentorship across projects. You’ll manage, inspire, and develop designers at varying levels, ensuring design quality and creative excellence across every output. With a solid background in art direction, graphic design, motion design and video production, you’ll drive high standards of craft and consistency while supporting the team with hands‑on guidance and decisive creative leadership.

You’ll be responsible for reviewing and signing off work, upholding brand and business standards, and ensuring that all design deliverables meet strategic and aesthetic goals. Each ADD has ownership of a number of clients, acting as brand guardian, leading a team of designers, whilst upholding client relationships and standards. As ADD you’ll have line management responsibilities, be expected to lead and help evolve the team with their personal and business objectives.

Our designers often work on projects that require art direction, graphic design, 2D/3D motion, and editing. This role combines design management and creative leadership, balancing people development, asset production, resource management and creative innovation. You’ll act as a trusted partner to wider team leads, bringing both vision and practical executional expertise to every project.
What You’ll Do   Lead, develop, motivate and inspire the design team on a daily basis
Suggest best ways of working, hustle for the best outcome and opportunities
Work with the Design Director to develop processes, structures and raise the quality of design
Build a productive and collaborative working relationship with other disciplines across the agency to deliver projects
Maintain brand consistency throughout all our projects, acting as brand guardian
Review scopes and collaborate with resource team, to ensure timings reflect best quality outcomes
Generate creative ideas and campaign look and feels
Deliver and inspire innovative and high quality work across all deliverables from the team
Be a reliable escalation point for design team and wider stakeholders, signing off work and communicating in a timely manner
Be aware of and respond to current design trends and culture
Use your experience and ideas to contribute to the development of our creative process
Present work internally and externally
Stay up-to-date with industry development and tools
What You Bring  Essential:
Experience in a Design Manager or Associate Design Director role
A career in design, showcasing a portfolio/showreel of campaign work
Expert technical skills, Adobe suite & Figma, Google Suite
Experience in video production and post production techniques
Experience in resource and time management
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
A high attention to detail, especially in large scale asset production and sign off
Experience in creating and reviewing scopes/timing plans
Strong aesthetic skills with art direction and graphic design principles
Ability to remain focused under pressure within a fast‑paced environment
A love for learning new things and exploring new formats
Nice to have:
AI design generation and production
Print production skills

Experience with 3D & sound
We Offer   A flexible, hybrid working policy
The…