Design Lead

Licensed sponsor Lilywhite House Full-time Posted 6 hours ago

Who We Are

Founded in 1882, Tottenham Hotspur is an iconic English football club, playing in the Premier League and Women’s Super League. From North London to the world, our fanbase spans continents, cultures, and generations.

Tottenham Hotspur is a club that’s always dared to push boundaries, breaking new ground, and rewriting history. We are at our brightest when we’re all together. Our club, our teams, our community.

We are entering a new era at Tottenham with a new club strategy, new leadership, and a focus on putting our supporters at the heart of everything we do as we continue to strengthen our connection with our home, each other, and the DNA of our club. A big part of achieving this is through our marketing department, a centre of excellence responsible for our Brand (what we say), our Creative (how we say it), and our Digital strategy (where we say it).

The Role

We’re looking for an exceptional Design Lead to define how Tottenham Hotspur looks, feels and shows up in the world. A world-class brand designer and design leader who can challenge convention, raise the creative bar and push our visual language into its next generation.

As Design Lead, you will own and evolve the Club’s visual identity across an increasingly complex brand ecosystem. From the Tottenham Hotspur masterbrand and Stadium to multiple sub-brands, campaigns, partnerships and experiences. You’ll bring clarity and consistency to the system while knowing when to break the rules and create something entirely new.

Reporting into the Head of Creative, you’ll lead a multidisciplinary team of designers, motion designers and artworkers, setting the design direction, raising standards and creating an environment where exceptional work can happen. Develop close relationships with senior stakeholders, internal teams and external creative agencies to shape the design direction of the Club. You’ll set the standard for design, lead the development of major campaigns and ensure that every expression of the brand feels distinctive, contemporary and unmistakably Tottenham.

We want to make work that doesn’t look like everyone else in sport.

Confident. Culturally relevant. Beautifully crafted.

This is an opportunity to have a genuine influence on one of the world’s most recognised sports brands and to shape what it becomes next.

About You

You are a designer first.

You live and breathe design. You obsess over typography, composition, identity, image-making, art direction, detail and craft. You know why something works and you’re not afraid to push until it works better.

You have a strong and distinctive design point of view, but you’re equally comfortable collaborating, listening and bringing others with you. You can move between the strategic and the deeply practical: defining the principles of a brand one minute and getting into the detail of a layout the next.

You understand that a great visual identity is more than a collection of assets. You know how to build systems that create consistency, flexibility and recognition, while still leaving room for creativity and surprise.

You’re comfortable working at scale and at pace. You can think about a brand ecosystem as a whole, but you also care deeply about the individual detail of every execution.

Most importantly, you want to make work that matters.

You’re ambitious for yourself, ambitious for your team and ambitious for the brand. You’re not interested in simply maintaining what exists. You want to make it better.

What you’ll do

OWN THE BRAND

Own and evolve the Club’s visual identity, setting the design standard across the organisation
Develop and lead design systems spanning the masterbrand, sub-brands, campaigns, partnerships and experiences
Push the visual language into its next generation. Distinctive, contemporary and culturally relevant
Define when to protect consistency and when to challenge the system, creating work that is unmistakably Tottenham
Lead the design of major campaigns and cultural moments, creating high-impact key visuals and identities from concept through to execution
Bring inspiration from fashion, music, art, culture and contemporary design to keep the brand fresh and unexpected

LEAD THE TEAM

Lead and inspire a multidisciplinary team of designers, motion designers and artworkers, setting the creative bar and creating the conditions for exceptional work.
Mentor and develop the team, fostering a culture of ambition, experimentation, collaboration and craft.
Lead by example. Staying close to the work and providing clear, constructive design direction and challenge. We want this to be a hands on role – you are as strong a designer as you are a leader. Know when to be on and off the tools to get the best results.

LEAD THE WORK

Set the design direction across brand, marketing, commercial, digital, social, content, retail, partnerships and physical environments.
Lead internal teams and external agencies to deliver distinctive, consistently high-quality work across every touchpoint.
Brief and direct external creative partners, including on major campaigns, pitches and tenders.
Partner with senior stakeholders to champion design, challenge briefs and turn commercial objectives into compelling creative opportunities.
Maintain an exceptional standard of craft, ensuring every piece of work strengthens the brand.

RAISE THE BAR

Be a constant source of ideas, inspiration and creative ambition for the wider team
Inspire and challenge others, helping create a culture where brave thinking and exceptional craft are expected
Stay relentlessly curious about culture, audiences, platforms and the world beyond sport
Bring new perspectives, references and creative thinking into the Club
Help build a creative reputation for Tottenham that extends far beyond football

What we’re looking for

Significant experience as a Design Lead, Design Director or equivalent, with a track record of creating and evolving distinctive brands.
This is not for Senior Designers looking for a step up – this is for proven Design Leaders who can make an impact from the off.
Deep expertise in brand identity and design systems is essential.
A proven ability to shape visual identities across complex brand ecosystems, including masterbrands, sub-brands and multiple audiences.
A portfolio that demonstrates exceptional design thinking, craft and execution.
Experience leading the visual development of major campaigns and creating distinctive, high-impact key visuals.
A strong understanding of how brand strategy translates into visual language.
Experience directing and collaborating with creative agencies and external design partners.
Proven experience leading and developing multidisciplinary design teams, ideally across design, motion and artwork.
Strong design leadership and the ability to set a vision, articulate it clearly and bring others with you.
Experience influencing senior stakeholders and confidently presenting and defending design work.
Exceptional attention to detail and an uncompromising standard of craft.
A strong cultural awareness and genuine curiosity about what is happening beyond the world of sport.
Experience in brand agency, fashion, music, art, culture or other creatively-led industries is highly valued.
Cross-cultural or international design experience is a plus.
Sports experience is welcome, but not required.
Excellent working knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite, particularly Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.
Awareness of the latest professional Creative tools for productivity and collaboration e.g Figma
A strong understanding of typography, layout, image-making and contemporary visual culture.
An understanding of how AI and emerging creative tools can support the design process is useful, but creative thinking, originality and design craft come first.

Safeguarding & Recruitment Statement

Safeguarding is fundamental to the success in all that we do. The Club follows a Safer Recruitment process for all roles. Successful candidates are to be reminded they would be subject to proportionate background, DBS and reference checks as required for this role.

We welcome applications from anyone regardless of age, disability, gender, race, or ethnic and national origins, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.

Reasonable Adjustments

We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process and will make reasonable adjustments at any stage of the application or interview process to support candidates with disabilities or specific needs. Please let us know if you require any adjustments so that we can ensure you have a fair and positive experience.

Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive a high volume of applications or due to business needs, so early applications are encouraged.