Visual Design Lead

Pearson is a design-centric product company whose mission is to have a direct relationship with millions of lifelong learners. We are committed to creating products that equip learners with the skills they need to enhance their world of opportunities. We believe that wherever learning flourishes so do people.

As the world’s leading learning company with more than 22,500 employees in 70 countries, we provide content, assessment, and digital services to learners, educational institutions, employers, governments and other partners globally.

**Purpose**:
**Key responsibilities**:
**Leadership**
- Lead a team of Visual Designers to ensure business strategy and objectives are met (direct line management)
- Develop and mentor Visual Designers to meet their full potential by upskilling/reskilling as required to meet current and future roles and responsibilities effectively.
- Collaborate with leadership to manage capacity of team
- Collaborate closely with other Functional Leads and colleagues during all stages of the project within the matrix
- Demonstrate a cohesive leadership profile and role-model Pearson’s values and behaviours.

**Visual Design**
- Provide quality art and creative direction.
- Creatively interpret multiple internal briefs.
- Design and implement creative designs and graphics across print and digital product
- Work in an iterative fashion during prototyping and research stages, as well as troubleshoot technical design issues as needed.
- Partner with the Marketing team to create graphics for print or digital marketing campaigns, adverts, etc.
- Update Pearson website content where necessary
- Make sure design layouts are correct and supplied in the right format/sizes/colour codes before being sent to press and production facilities.
- Compile creative briefs and manage external vendors where necessary.
- Collaborate with internal stakeholders to generate and communicate best practice guidelines and content creation standards for Visual and User Interface design
- Stay abreast with new trends and developments in visual design, products/services and market needs
- Always focus on the user experience of the end-user.
- Proactively resource pipelining (build a network of potential artwork and design vendors, etc.)

**Pearson Brand**
- Assist the Design and Digital Development Head as a custodian of the Pearson brand and Pearson product brands.
- Ensure that design work created by the Design team and external vendors are in line with and enhances Pearson’s brand, Pearson’s content creation standards, industry and accessibility standards.

**Core Competencies**
- Leadership capabilities
- Empathy
- Strong decision-making skills
- Project Management skills / experience
- Excellent communicator
- Creative thinker
- Innovative
- Problem solver
- Excellent visualisation skills
- Customer focused
- Attention to detail and accuracy
- Quality conscious
- Adaptability to changing environments
- Manage multiple projects
- Focused and goal orientated
- Grasp new technologies with ease
- Engage with and understand educational content

**Qualifications**

**Qualifications and Experience**:

- Relevant 3-year degree / diploma
- 3-5 years industry experience as a Senior Visual / Graphic Designer
- Experience managing a creative team/studio
- Highly developed art direction skills and/or experience
- Strong understanding of designing with data and making data driven decisions.
- Practical experience with various production and rendering processes in both print and digital environments
- Experience in the development of online and/or multimedia materials

**Technical Skills**:

- Highly skilled and experienced in using Adobe Creative Cloud. (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat)
- Working knowledge of UX prototyping tools (Adobe XD, Sketch, etc.)
- Knowledge of HTML, CSS, JS is desirable
- Knowledge of cross platform, browser & OS compatibility / functionality
- Jira
- Excel
- Must have a strong portfolio available for viewing.

**Pearson is committed to the principles of employment equity and in accordance with our Employment Equity goals and plan; preference will be given to suitable applicants from designated groups as defined in the Employment Equity Act and subsequent amendments thereto.**

**Job**: PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

**Organization**: International

**Schedule**: FULL\_TIME

**Req ID**: 2111973