Designer/Junior Designer

Macmillan Education provides world class content in the most relevant, engaging and flexible formats to support students, teachers and institutions through a lifetime of learning. Macmillan Education produces content for English Language Teaching (ELT) and for Schools curricula around the world, whilst Palgrave Higher Education develops and distributes textbooks, e-books and interactive e-learning resources primarily for University-level students.
 

Job Title: Designer/Junior Designer
Organisation: Macmillan Education
Location: London
 

Macmillan Higher education develops and distributes textbooks, e-books and interactive e-learning resources primarily for University-level students, from undergraduate to postgraduate, in Social Sciences, Humanities, Business, and Study Skills.
 

The Higher Education division of Macmillan Education publishes markets and sells English Language core adoptable textbooks globally. Apart from their own imprint, Palgrave, Macmillan Education also markets and sells high quality established imprints. These include the STEM imprints of Springer, WH Freeman and Sinauer, the Social Science imprints of Worth Publishers and the Humanities imprints of the Royal Shakespeare Company, BFI and Bedford/St Martins. Together these imprints give us a breadth of publishing across almost all subject areas taught in universities across the world. Macmillan Education has operations in London, New York, Shanghai and Melbourne. 
 

This is a fantastic opportunity to join the higher education design team on a temporary contract that could become permanent. This role is to design high-impact book covers within company brand guidelines for the Macmillan International Higher Education that are compelling for the target user and competitive for the market. Additionally you will work with the wider marketing team on other company initiatives like the company re-brand and new website.
 

Responsibilities:

• Jacket Design
• Respond to briefs from editorial –interpret them and seek confirmation
• Establish early communication with the editorial/marketing and sales team dependent on the category of the product being designed
• Work within the Macmillan International Higher Education brand guidelines
• Follow the workflow for initial designs, gathering feedback and taking designs to the final stage including stakeholder approval
• Ensure the cover artwork is press ready and supplied to printer specifications
• Once final, upload the cover in all formats following the cover upload workflow to the timelines required
• Create the handover mechanical for editorial
• Respond to queries and checks for covers and implement any mid-edition changes/updates
• Manage the invoicing of images

Marketing Design

• Contribute to wider company design projects such as re-brands and major marketing campaign initiatives
• Give feedback, when required, on design projects that are outsourced to ensure brand guidelines are adhered to
• Provide design work for marketing materials when cover is needed
• Support sourcing of images, printers and other suppliers when needed

Relationship Management

• Foster strong working relationships with all key stakeholders to keep projects progressing
• Be proactive to respond to challenges in projects to keep them on track and to brief
• Demonstrate ownership of own projects and work to ensure everyone is involved, informed and communicate is effective
• Outside of the day to day tasks, attend Editorial and Marketing meetings to provide team, process or design updates.
• Be a fantastic and supportive team player, showing leadership in the design team and an active participant in company meetings
•  

Creativity

• Keep up to date with current trends in book cover design
• Ensure good and current knowledge of marketing design trends for marketing projects
• Continually seek to improve cover design across the team and push the boundaries
• Keep up to date with competitor activity and current target market to encourage further creativity

Experience, skills and qualification:

• Degree/equivalent in Graphic Design
• Strong user of Adobe Creative Suite
• Excellent creativity
• Strong communication skills
• Sound knowledge of pre-press
• Excellent time management skills
• Ability to work on many projects at once while keeping to deadlines
• Knowledge of publishing workflows and ability to adapt to new processes quickly
• Knowledge and interest in book cover design
• Experience of sending files to press and meeting specifications
• Project ownership
• Time management

To apply, please submit a CV, portfolio of work, and a cover letter outlining your key ambitions in the role, including your salary expectations.