Design and Production Manager

Duties/Pligte
- **Design and production management for the in-house design studio providing concept development, design, creative execution and production across media**:

- Dispatching all briefs within the studio based on personnel's strengths and skills to ensure that output is completed timeously;
- Managing design, copy and production flow;
- Developing and optimising briefing templates for internal clients to use;
- Guiding creative outputs from initial stages through to final delivery;
- Monitoring production processes and providing input for improvement where required;
- Identifying peaks and troughs in the workflow to determine adequate resources for projects and identifying opportunities to increase efficiency;
- Managing multiple projects simultaneously;
- Identifying lead times for jobs upfront, communicating them and renegotiating deadlines if required;
- Ensuring that deadlines and briefs are met within the budget provided;
- Running creative brainstorms on large projects where required;
- Focusing on product development for a range of services;
- Holding regular production and status meetings with the team, suppliers, and clients to ensure efficient delivery;
- Ensuring that client briefs are met accurately and that there is sign-off from relevant parties;
- Interpreting client briefs for multiple types of media design;
- Quality control and checking the design and production outputs;
- Quality assurance of the production processes;
- Liaising with external printers to ensure that the highest quality work is delivered within the deadline;
- Managing all aspects of the logistics of production;
- Ensuring that all production queries are handled efficiently and timeously;
- Liaising with internal relationship coordinators and other internal stakeholders within the marketing team;
- Ensuring that website updates are performed timeously and routinely.

**2. Process and traffic management**:

- Managing the studio processes to streamline the workflow:

- Delivering efficient processes and optimised scheduling;
- Daily management of Jira workflow scheduling and managing the daily schedules of the creatives;
- Jira updates, maintenance and enhancements;
- Managing resource requirements within the team.

**3. Stellenbosch Business School corporate identity (CI) stewardship**:

- Designing guidelines and rules for the use of the CI aligned to SU's CI guidelines;
- Ensuring cohesive brand language:

- Ensuring the CI alignment to the brand guidelines of all requests;
- Managing the image and video system for the Business School, including templates;
- Establishing and maintaining a library of resources.

**4. Team leadership and resourcing**:

- Initiating and implementing a resource strategy for the studio in support of the Business School's output requirements;
- Establishing a supplier strategy to meet the clients' brief / requirements;
- Managing and motivating a team of creatives and improving overall performance;
- Integrating the studio as part of the broader marketing team;
- Providing strategic and inspirational leadership to reportees, and encouraging creativity, innovation, and positive teamwork;
- Responsible for performance management and professional development of the team;
- Evaluating and improving the team workflow through evolving best practice processes;
- Ensuring the optimal allocation of resources - managing both internal resources and external contractors;
- Creating and managing a network of external resources (freelancers such as designers, photographers, etc.);
- Upskilling / resource according to creative and channel requirements, including video;
- Managing the performance reviews of suppliers and outsourced resources;
- Monitoring the budget and creating monthly reports on the finance status to provide input into resource planning;
- Negotiating and contracting with external vendors and submitting requests to the Head of Marketing and the financial administrator to process;
- Preparing purchase orders, journals and organising payments for suppliers / vendors.
- Researching new digital design trends and software or design tools;
- Keeping abreast of technical updates for effective decision-making;

Job Requirements/Pos Vereistes

**_The manager of the internal design studio should ideally have a graphic design background and the ability to assist with design where necessary, although their core function will be studio management and not design._**
- A relevant three-year national diploma in graphic design or a related field;
- At least five years' experience in managing the design and production of an inhouse studio (including budgets and reporting), interpreting creative briefs, and producing the required material on deadline across channels;
- At least three years' experience of managing employees, scheduling workflow, and managing external resources;
- A portfolio of conceptually strong graphic design work, including examples of websites that have been worked on;
- A stro