Design Director
19 days ago
City of London
Havas SO exists to create meaningful solutions in health that earn real-world impact. We believe design is one of the most powerful tools we have to make that happen — turning complexity into clarity, science into stories, and ideas into experiences that move through culture. As advertising and design undergo the biggest structural reset in decades, we are building a next-generation creative team: one driven by cultural intelligence, world-class craft, multidisciplinary experimentation and the belief that design can shape human behaviour for the better. We are also a deeply kind, curious, optimistic team. Great humans make great work. The Role We’re looking for a Design Director who is a true hybrid: a craft-obsessed design thinker, a cultural maker, an innovation explorer, and an inspiring leader capable of shaping one of the most exciting design teams in health. You’ll lead a small, high-potential team (3 designers), with the opportunity to shape its future growth. You’ll work across and elevate multiple design disciplines: • Graphic design and campaign identity, • AI-enabled visual exploration and prototyping, • Social-first design and motion, • Digital design, • Experiential and spatial design, • Editorial and information design Your remit is both creative and cultural: to set a new bar for design excellence in health, and to help build a team capable of producing work that shapes culture, not just communication. What You’ll Do 1. Set the design standard for the agency • Set and uphold an exceptional standard of craft across every output, • Be hands-on — shaping, refining and elevating design work, • Champion taste, restraint and clarity in a complex category 2. Lead multidisciplinary design across brands, campaigns and experiences • Shape campaign identities, visual worlds and design systems, • Strong experience across digital, motion and social-first design, • Lead experiential concepts, social design, information design and motion, • Bring scientific, behavioural and cultural insights to life with emotional clarity 3. Push creative innovation • Use AI tools to accelerate exploration, prototyping and visual development, • Identify where AI can enhance craft, not replace it, • Stay experimental — bringing new tools and approaches into the team 4. Build and nurture a world-class design team • Mentor, inspire and elevate designers across all levels, • Hire with care: curious minds, kind collaborators, culturally aware thinkers, optimists by nature, • Foster a safe, ambitious environment where designers can do the best work of their careers 5. Partner across disciplines • Collaborate seamlessly with creatives, strategists, scientists, copywriters and experience designers, • Contribute to ideas upstream — shaping behaviours, not just visuals 6. Ensure design excellence in every output • Oversee final craft quality across Figma, Adobe Suite, motion, social, experiential and beyond, • Insist on clarity, beauty and originality in every detail What You Bring • Senior experience across multiple design disciplines (graphic, experiential, social/motion, editorial, identity, digital), • A portfolio that demonstrates range, depth, emotion and cultural relevance, • Technical mastery of Figma and the Adobe Creative Suite, with comfort directing motion, animation and 3D workflows, • Demonstrated experience using AI tools for ideation, visual development, prototyping or production, • A love of culture, design trends, emerging aesthetics, movements, signals and behaviours, • Ability to turn scientific or behavioural complexity into visual worlds that feel human, modern and meaningful, • A leadership style rooted in kindness, curiosity, clarity and optimism, • A belief that design doesn’t just reflect culture but builds it, • Deep motivation to create meaningful solutions in health that earn real-world impact Why Join Us At Havas SO, you will help shape one of the most exciting creative teams in health today… a place where design, culture, science and innovation collide. You’ll lead with craft and kindness. You’ll build a team you’re proud of. And you’ll create work that genuinely makes people’s lives better.