Creative Director

Who We Are

TOPOSOPHY is a place strategy and experience consultancy. We help cities, regions, national bodies and brands understand how places are experienced and made to work - for the people who live in them as much as the people who visit.

For fifteen years we have delivered projects in over twenty countries across four continents. We are twenty people across Athens, Dublin and London.

We have worked with European Travel Commission
, UN Tourism
, UNDP
, EBRD
, Amsterdam & Partners
, Glasgow Life
, Historic Environment Scotland
, Visit Belfast
, Mastercard
, Alpha Bank
, Coca-Cola
, Aegean
, and the Greek National Tourism Organisation
.

We also create and run signature/licensed events and branded assets - Dine Athens, Stay in Athens, Taste of Athens, Around the Table among others.

We are looking for a Creative Director to lead the creative direction of our experience platforms and of the TOPOSOPHY brand.

This is a role about building identity systems, not just campaigns. Our creative platforms and branded assets run year after year and across different partners and cities, so the creative work has to hold up when it is applied by other people, without us in the room.

You will report to the CEO, set the creative standard for the firm, and have real authority over the decisions in your area.

Event Identity & Design

• Develop and evolve the visual and verbal identities of our event platforms
• Build the guidelines, systems and toolkits that keep them consistent wherever they run
• Define what remains fixed and what can adapt across partners, audiences and cities
• Translate identities into real-world applications across digital, print, signage, environments and event experiences

The TOPOSOPHY Brand

• Own and evolve the TOPOSOPHY visual identity
• Lead the creative direction of our website, presentations, pitches and proposals
• Build systems and templates that raise the quality and consistency of creative work across the firm

Creative Leadership

• Set and hold the creative standard across the business
• Lead a Brand Designer and direct external creative partners across photography, film, illustration and motion
• Review work, give clear direction and make creative decisions when there are competing views
• Bring new ideas, references, collaborators and creative networks into the firm
• Build effective AI-assisted creative workflows that improve the quality and speed of the team's work

Background

• Substantial experience in brand and identity design at senior, lead or Creative Director level
• A strong portfolio of brand and identity work showing systems rather than one-off executions
• A track record of creating identities that other people have had to apply — through guidelines, toolkits, multi-market or multi-partner rollouts
• Experience with a city, cultural institution, festival, museum, hospitality brand or place brand — or a convincing case for why your experience transfers
• Experience leading designers and directing external creative suppliers
• Studio, in-house brand or consultancy backgrounds are all relevant. Agency campaign backgrounds are welcome where the systems work is there
• Fluent English;
  Greek is a strong advantage
• Based in or willing to relocate to Athens, with some travel to UK/Ireland and our other markets when required.

Technical

• Expert in Adobe Creative Suite — particularly Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop — and Figma
• Typography at a high level: type selection, pairing, licensing, and commissioning or adapting typefaces where a project calls for it
• Strong understanding of colour systems, accessibility and contrast standards, and how identities behave across print, screen, environmental and large-format applications
• Brand guideline authoring — able to turn creative decisions into clear rules that other people can understand and apply
• Design systems, component libraries and file architecture that allow teams to work consistently and efficiently
• Art direction of photography, film, illustration and motion, including briefing, commissioning and sourcing
• Comfortable specifying for print production and fabrication, including stock, finishes, signage, way finding and event environments
• Presentation and pitch…