Head of Design / Visual Brand Guardian / Chocolate Lover £60k, Derbyshire

Do you love chocolate and design? Then we love you too!!

Britain’s leading premium chocolate manufacturer and retailer with over 600 stores and a rapidly increasing share of confectionery within grocery retailers are seeking a creative and ambitious Head of Design to lead our talented team of in-house designers . You will have a proven track record of developing design strategies and visual direction for major brands.

Reporting the Marketing Director, you will be accountable for delivering brand consistency across all consumer touch points including packaging, POS, and other multi media marketing materials. The Head of Design is the visual brand guardian, ensuring consistency and high standards of creative work.

You will be a strategic thinker and also have experience of managing and delivering cost centre budgets as well as experience of leading and developing a team of designers.

Key accountabilities will include:

• Generating the visual strategy and direction of the brand
• Delivering innovation and sales growth in line with the business strategy
• Manage the efficient workflow of projects through the design studio, challenging and validating briefs where necessary
• Lead and drive implementation of the analysis of visual and commercial trends, suppliers, competitor and market place intelligence in order to inform the creative direction of the visual look of the Brand to achieve optimum sales, continuous improvement and optimum brand perception.
• To promote the design resource within the business up to board level, raising the awareness of the importance of creativity and how it can drive sales.
• Lead your own team of 7 as well as building strong inter-team relationships to encourage efficient, strong communications
• Determine and manage the design centre budget and input into other cost centres where required to protect the company profit margin.

Key Skills/Knowledge:

• Ability to influence others from junior to Board level within the organisation through clear and concise presentation of fact based evidence – strong stakeholder management skills
• Consistent delivery to deadlines in an accurate manner
• Ability to use Apple Mac design/artwork and photo manipulation software
• Experience of art direction of photo shoots, ideally food
• Ability to work collaboratively
• Design experience of packaging, POS, and strong retail knowledge

Formal bit:

• Minimum of 7 years’ experience of leading the design direction of a brand
• Ideally of graduate calibre or equivalent in a related discipline
• Design experience of packaging, POS, and strong retail knowledge

For more information please speak to Katie at katie@cloudninerecruitment.co.uk