Design Director; Retail Interiors

Design Director (Retail Interiors)

Luxury, Fashion, and Culture-Led Retail

Salary:
Up to £70,000

Location:
East London

Working pattern:
Hybrid (minimum 3 days in studio, 2 from home)

Sector:
Luxury and Culture-Led Retail, Flagship Store Design, Brand Environments, Experiential

About the Studio

This is an award-winning design agency that builds brand environments with genuine purpose. Their clients are the names that set the pace rather than follow it: luxury fashion houses, directional sportswear and streetwear labels, and the culture-led brands that people queue around the block for. The work is flagship stores, brand houses, seasonal takeovers, and launch moments, made for audiences who notice the difference between a considered space and a merchandised one.

It is grounded in first and second-hand research, human-centred by design, delivered with circular principles embedded from the outset, and executed to a standard the industry is still catching up with.

The team is growing, the culture is collaborative and quality-obsessed, and the briefs are the kind that demand the best from the people delivering them.

About the Role

This is a genuinely senior hire. As Design Director, you will partner closely with the Creative Director to shape the studio's creative standards and strategic vision, and take creative leadership of retail interiors output from initial concept through to built completion.

The centre of gravity is permanent retail: store design, retail environments, and the kind of physically resolved, consumer-journey-led thinking that distinguishes great retail architecture from decoration. Alongside that, the work spans seasonal programmes, pop-ups, windows, and fixture design, so you'll be comfortable moving between scales and lifespans without dropping the standard.

This is not rollout work. Every project is its own answer, made for a brand with a point of view and an audience who will judge it accordingly. What matters here is materiality, craft, and detail that stands up close, paired with concepts strong enough to survive contact with a client, a budget, and a build programme. You will still be hands-on with pinnacle projects, but your primary value is in the quality and direction of the work across the board.

You will work closely alongside strategy team leads, taking briefs that span fashion, sport, culture, and technology and shaping them into creative responses that are both commercially rigorous and genuinely original. You'll be a pivotal link between creative strategy, client services, and production, and a senior creative contact for key clients in your own right.

You will also carry a line report, with a real responsibility to develop that person's career as thoughtfully as you develop the work. The studio is at a stage where this role has real influence over how the creative offer evolves, and they are looking for someone who wants that responsibility, not just the title.

Your days will look something like this...

• Lead the creative direction of flagship stores, retail interiors, and brand environments from concept through to built completion, maintaining the highest standards at every stage
• Partner with the Creative Director to define creative standards, strategic vision, and clear design direction on leading projects
• Work hands-on across pinnacle projects (flagships, brand houses, major retail commissions, key activations) while overseeing the creative output of the wider team on concurrent briefs
• Translate strategy and cultural insight into tangible, emotionally resonant spatial concepts, and present them so clients understand them and feel excited by them
• Push materiality, finish, and detail, specifying with the confidence that comes from knowing how things are actually made
• Oversee and direct the production of design intent packs for retail store design, ensuring architectural drawings are accurately interpreted and creatively elevated
• Stay close to the build, with site presence through construction and handover to protect design intent all the way to completion
• Collaborate with strategy team leads to shape creative responses to briefs, bringing strong conceptual thinking and a grounded understanding of how people move, look, and buy in a space
• Lead client presentations and pitches with authority, holding the creative narrative clearly and confidently from first concept to final sign-off
• Act as a senior creative contact for key clients, building relationships founded on trust, transparency, and relatability
• Scope and quote projects in collaboration with project managers, contributing to realistic timelines, resource planning, and creative scheduling
• Brief and manage external creative resource, including freelance designers, holding them to the same standard as the in-house team
• Manage, mentor, and actively develop a team spanning senior, mid-weight, and junior designers, with a direct line report to nurture through their career path
• Support business development through pitch strategy, quoting, and creative…