Creative Design Lead (Publishing)

Salary: £41,200 to £61,800 (full time equivalent, dependent on experience)
Full-Time | All Year Round | ​37 hours per week
On-site role | Based in Halifax (HX2) and Leeds (LS11)) – post holder will work cross-site

Set the visual standard for resources used by thousands of teachers

White Rose Education is a respected UK education publisher whose schemes of learning, workbooks and worksheets are used in classrooms across the UK and beyond.

We’re bringing our publishing design in house, and we’re looking for a senior, hands-on designer to help define what White Rose resources look and feel like for the future.

This is the senior design role within a new publishing department. You will own the templates, layout and artwork behind our print and digital resources – and produce much of that work yourself. There is no line management at the outset, but as the department grows, there is scope for the role to grow with it and lead other designers.

What you’ll do

This is a role for someone who wants to design, not just direct. You’ll be hands-on with the work while creating the design systems, templates and standards that allow us to produce consistently brilliant resources at scale.

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• Design and lay out schemes of learning, workbooks, worksheets, assessments and digital resources
• Build and maintain the master templates, grids, type styles and asset library everything is produced from
• Own print-ready artwork and pre-press, including specification, proofing, colour and printer liaison
• Make design serve learning: clear hierarchy, sensible cognitive load and accessible typography
• Brief and art direct freelance illustrators and designers
• Work closely with editors and subject specialists to a fixed publishing calendar

What you’ll bring

You’ll combine strong creative judgement with the technical discipline needed to make great design work at scale. We’re looking for someone who understands that beautiful design is only part of the job – it also needs to be consistent, accurate, accessible and ready to publish.

• Senior design experience in publishing, or another high-volume, template-driven environment
• Expert InDesign, plus Illustrator and Photoshop, including styles, master pages and long documents
• Proven print production and pre-press experience
• A portfolio showing template and system work that other people have produced from
• Experience delivering to publication dates that do not move
• Awareness of publishing governance and compliance requirements

Educational publishing, accessibility standards, digital design or your own illustration skills are all a bonus, but none of them is essential.

Why this role

This is an opportunity to create the visual foundations of a publishing function, rather than inherit somebody else’s. What you establish now will influence how White Rose Education’s resources are designed and produced as the department grows.

• A design system to create from scratch, not one to inherit
• Work that is used, not just admired: resources that reach thousands of classrooms
• A clear path to leading designers as the department grows
• On-site role – working between our offices in Halifax and Leeds
• Pension, generous annual leave, funded professional development, wellbeing support and free on-site parking

How to apply

Apply with your CV, a cover note, and a link to your portfolio. If there is mutual interest, we will arrange an initial confidential conversation before anything goes further.