Senior Graphic Designer

This is a three-month contract with a London brand agency that builds identities and brand systems for consumer, culture and hospitality clients. Think marks people actually recognise, packaging that holds up on shelf, and campaigns that still feel like design rather than template. The studio is mid-sized, senior-led, and known for craft over volume. They are not a content farm. They are the kind of place where a deck gets torn apart for a better idea, and where the work on the wall is work they are proud to put their name on.

The brief exists because a long-standing client is going through a full rebrand. New ownership, a sharper commercial ambition, and a brand that has grown past the identity that got them here. The agency has already won the strategic piece and locked the direction. What they need now is a senior designer who can take that thinking and turn it into a living system: identity, applications, guidelines, and the first wave of rollout assets. Three months is enough to do it properly if the person who arrives can move with confidence and without needing their hand held.

Day to day you will be deep in the rebrand. Exploring and refining the visual language. Building out the system across print and digital. Working up applications that prove the identity in the real world: stationery, packaging directions, social frameworks, environmental moments, presentation templates, the unglamorous but essential stuff that makes a brand usable. You will present work, take notes that actually change the next round, and push unfinished ideas until they feel inevitable. Some days are long exploration. Some days are production with precision. Both matter.

You will work closely with the creative director who owns the relationship and the design director who owns the craft bar. Expect regular critique, not drive-by feedback. You will also sit with account and strategy on client calls when the work needs explaining, and with a small internal team of designers and a motion lead when applications need to move. You are the senior pair of hands on the visual system. Juniors may support production, but the thinking and the quality sit with you.

The studio is hybrid, with two to three days a week expected in the London office. Rebrand work moves faster when people are in the same room, especially in the middle weeks when decisions stack up. Remote days are real working days, not soft ones. The culture is grown-up and direct: high standards, low politics, humour when the pressure is on. They care about the work more than the theatre around it.

This is a good job if you want to leave a mark on a real rebrand, not just polish slides. You will own a meaningful chunk of a live identity system for a client with ambition, inside an agency that still believes design can change how a business feels. Three months, clear purpose, proper day rate, and a team that will notice the difference when the work is excellent.

Essential: five or more years in brand and identity design, with at least a couple of those at senior level inside an agency or equivalent studio environment. You should already be used to leading a workstream without needing constant direction.

Portfolio: we need to see brand identity and system work, not only campaign layouts or social templates. Show at least one rebrand or identity evolution where you can talk about before and after, and how the system held up across applications. Include print and digital. If you have packaging, environmental, or guidelines experience, put it forward. We care about craft, typographic judgement, and whether the work feels considered rather than decorated.

Tools: expert in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. Confident in Figma for collaborative review and digital applications. Comfortable presenting work on screen and in the room. Motion literacy is useful; you do not need to be the motion lead.

Prior work: brand systems, identity rollouts, guidelines, and applications for real clients. Experience with consumer, culture or hospitality brands is a strong fit. You should be able to move from exploratory routes to locked artwork without the quality dropping.

Soft skills that matter here: clear taste you can defend without being precious. Calm under client scrutiny. The ability to hear a note, improve the work, and not take it personally. Generosity with juniors when they are helping on production. Direct communication with creative and account leads.

Nice to have: experience writing or structuring brand guidelines; packaging or environmental applications; light motion or after-effects familiarity; previous work with hospitality, retail or lifestyle brands; a point of view on contemporary identity work that goes beyond trends.