The Role:
We’re looking for a mid-level brand designer and creative thinker who doesn’t just execute identity systems, but shapes them from the inside out. Someone who understands that brands don’t live in guidelines, they live in places, on streets, across screens and in shared cultural moments.
At The Ready House, design is never decoration. It’s the visible expression of strategic thinking across retail, hospitality, civic and commercial place-based projects. You’ll lead the development of brand worlds from identity systems and visual languages to tone of voice, naming territories and campaign narratives ensuring ideas translate seamlessly from concept through to real-world activation.
This is a hands-on creative leadership role. You’ll be designing, directing and shaping work yourself, setting the creative bar while guiding the wider team. You’ll act as a brand guardian across projects, protecting the integrity of the idea while evolving it across formats, spaces and audiences.
You’ll support junior and mid-weight designers through feedback, mentoring and day-to-day guidance, helping raise both craft and thinking across the studio.
We think strategically, but we make things. Ideas don’t sit in decks here they become identities, environments, campaigns and experiences. We value designers with conviction: people with strong opinions, sharp taste and the confidence to stand behind their work.
Key Responsibilities:
Overall:
- Lead the creative development of brand identities and visual systems across projects — shaping everything from concept through to execution
- Define and evolve brand worlds over time, ensuring ideas remain fresh, coherent and culturally relevant
- Translate positioning and narrative into distinctive visual languages, campaign concepts and activation-ready creative
- Drive place-led design thinking: embedding local insight, cultural nuance and storytelling into spatial, environmental and digital expressions
- Collaborate closely with strategy, content and production to ensure ideas are expressed powerfully and consistently across every touchpoint
- Act as a creative guardian, protecting the integrity of the idea across identity, typography, motion, environment and campaign outputs
- Mentor and guide junior and mid-weight designers, elevating craft, thinking and presentation standards across the studio
- Build client confidence through strong creative rationale, clear articulation of design decisions and compelling presentations
- Contribute to proposals and new business, helping shape pitch concepts that are visually distinctive, culturally sharp and commercially credible
Management:
- Line-manage a small team of designers (junior), including recruitment input, onboarding and career development plans tailored to each individual.
- Set clear objectives, run weekly check-ins, and input into quarterly performance reviews and development conversations.
- Delegate tasks effectively: match briefs to team strengths, monitor workload, and step in to support high-priority pieces.
- Mentor and upskill team on brand systems, technical outputs (print, digital, environmental fabrication) and presentation skills.
Costings:
- Produce and own cost estimates for creative phases and production: from concept to final delivery.
- Work with the Creative Director to build realistic budgets and track spend against approved budgets.
- Identify cost-saving opportunities while protecting design intent.
- Approve supplier quotes up to agreed costs and escalate anything outside scope or budget.
- Maintain a library of standard cost rates for rapid estimating.
Project Overview:
- Have oversight of all of the projects that sit inside of the business to be able to assist strategically and creatively where needed.
- Lead end-to-end design delivery for assigned projects: brief → concept → development → production → finalised asset.
- Translate high-level briefs into phased plans with clear milestones and deliverables.
- Create concise creative briefs for internal team and external suppliers.
- Maintain project trackers and report status to the creative director and client at agreed cadences.
Reviewing Work:
- Set and maintain quality standards: final-approve all design deliverables before client submission or production.
- Run structured design reviews and critique sessions that are constructive and time-efficient; document feedback and action lists.
- Implement QC checklists for artwork.
- Pushing Process & Culture:
- Becoming a champion for a culture of continuous improvement.
- Push for efficient processes that reduces reworks.
- Foster collaborative studio culture: run show-and-tells and cross-discipline workshops to share learning.
Why this role matters:
This is more than a design job. It’s a chance to shape a business that’s doubling down on brand, culture and place. You’ll work on placemaking briefs with landlords and developers, brand fashion spaces, social platforms and high streets, and help build TRH V2 more strategic, place-led and commercially sharp than ever.
