Senior Designer (9 month FTC)

Who we are and what we do

Hachette Children's Group of the UK's largest children's publishers, our mission is to make it easy for children and young people everywhere to access books and see themselves reflected. We aim to maximise our readers' life chances by inspiring a lifelong love of reading, publishing books for every stage of their journey to adulthood from Enid Blyton to Alice Oseman's Heartstopper.

Hachette Children's Group is a division of Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the UK, with 12 publishing divisions and over 60 imprints. Everyone here is proud to be in the business of opening doors and minds.

What you'll be doing

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a talented, motivated and experienced Senior Designer to join the Hachette Children’s Fiction and Text-Led Non-fiction team in a fixed term full-time position. Reporting to the Art Director for Fiction and Text-Led Non-fiction you will design both covers and interiors on books aimed at children of all ages. Working closely with the editorial and commercial teams to deliver on commercial and creative success, growth, profitability and quality. You will support the Art Director as well as the wider Design team, share knowledge and expertise to assist with the growth of newer members of the team, and be cost-conscious whilst pushing forward with standout designs and ideas.

You’ll be involved in every aspect of the design process, working closely with staff in all other departments.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for a highly creative, organised and experienced Senior Designer to join the Hachette Children’s Group, working on the Fiction and Text-Led Non-fiction lists on titles for children of all ages. The successful candidate will have excellent design and visual communication skills, as well as collaboration, strategic thinking and project management capabilities.

This is a broad and varied role, and the right candidate will embrace working closely with the editors and the Art Director in the development of new and existing titles, exploring new approaches to design.

We are looking for a versatile Senior Designer who is aware of current trends and likes to develop new ideas. We need you to bring a positive, can-do approach, a passion for leading the design of this genre and a desire to build strong relationships with your immediate team, other departments, as well as illustrators, authors and agents.

An understanding of great design and a passion for both Fiction and Non-fiction is essential.

Applicants should also have an enthusiasm and experience developing illustrators as well as working in both black-and-white and colour.

An excellent knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite is essential.

In your application, please submit a CV, Cover Letter and Portfolio (which is in the Cover Letter section) .

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

The role will be based at our London office, Carmelite House, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

Our commitment

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.

If you are shortlisted and need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org