Design Lead

Condé Nast is a global media company producing the highest quality content with a footprint of more than 1 billion consumers in 32 territories through print, digital, video and social platforms. The company’s portfolio includes many of the world’s most respected and influential media properties including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Self, GQ, The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler/Traveller, Allure, AD, Bon Appétit and Wired, among others.Job Description

Location:

London, GB

Condé Nast is a global media company, home to iconic brands including Vogue, GQ, Glamour, AD, Vanity Fair and Wired, among many others. Our award-winning content reaches 84 million consumers in print, 367 million in digital and 379 million across social platforms, and generates more than 1 billion video views each month.

We are headquartered in London and New York, and operate in 31 markets worldwide, including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico & Latin America, Spain, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S., with local licence partners across the globe.

Our mission is to empower our brands for business and creative success by creating the next-generation suite of content publishing and consumption experiences. We are a group of designers, product managers, engineers, strategists, and researchers dedicated to building innovative, user-centric products.

The Role

Our digital products play a critical role in Vogue’s future.  Bringing Vogue to life on digital platforms, in engaging, user-centric ways, which drive business value is key to Vogue’s continued success.

We are looking for a Product Design Lead,  to help drive the design of our user experience and manage our international design team, across Vogue’s global portfolio of digital products. 

The Product Design Lead is responsible for bringing to life industry leading, global experiences, which put our users’ needs at their centre and elevate the excellence of our editorial, in order to deliver business value, through a focus on features and initiatives that drive engagement.

The Team

We are a team of experience designers with expertise in visual design, UX, interaction design, content design, and research. We partner closely with editorial, product management, engineering, and business partners to strategize, design, and launch effective and beautiful digital products. We believe that a well-formed design culture is essential to delivering excellent products.

What will you be doing?

Contributes to and guides the execution of, Design strategy

• Supports the Senior Director, Product Design in contributing to product strategy and oversees day-to-day execution, collaborating with their cross functional partners to articulate a compelling vision for Vogue’s user experience across its portfolio of digital products 

• Translates strategies into easily digestible tasks for ICs, clearly communicating scope 

• Ensures the  team is consistently considering what success looks like for the business, anchoring design approaches in the agreed-upon metrics for their work.

Designs with an Insights driven approach

• Develops a rich understanding of our products and users, proactively seeks to learn more to better tailor what we design to their needs.

• Works with the Senior Director to ensure an insights driven, user centred design process, partnering with the UX Research team, Product Analytics and Audience Development – along with product and engineering

• Collaborates with research partners, to draw actionable insights to inform design direction, as well as assess the success of initiatives – and helps support, guide and direct team members in doing so Drives design quality, feature execution and system implementation/evolution

• Establish and maintain high design standards, that balance technical feasibility with innovation and a strong eye for detail

• Connects the dots across workstreams to ensure the quality and consistency of our product at scale. 

• Contributes to, and helps shape global design systems and applies them in robust and scalable ways

• Establish frameworks, documentation, guidelines and best practices to ensure consistency and coherency in design output

• Works to uplevel the skills and craft of their ICs, ensuring design solutions adhere to the standards of the brand and brief while keeping the user at the heart.. A leading voice in critiques, and a mentor to those around them in upleveling their craft.

Cultivate, mentor and manage through team and design leadership

• Works with the Senior Director to establish a vision for the team that motivates and inspires, fostering a culture of innovation and creativity.

• Helps estimate, plan and manage short-term work loads and informs longer term projects and resource planning, ensuring features and projects are delivered to these timelines.

• Fosters an environment that promotes growth, development and design excellence across the team, where team members feel valued and recognised for their contributions

• Helps provide ongoing skill building opportunities for team members through mentorship, coaching, workshops and peer to peer training, whilst identifying broader learning and development opportunities

• Supports team members in their individual career growth, through identifying and pursuing professional development opportunities and providing opportunities for advancement.

• Contribute to the broader tone and shape of our organizational design culture and our broader design strategy at Condé Nast

Foster relationships and collaboration with cross functional partners

• Works with the Senior Director to foster relationships and team-wide understanding of all aspects that affect the end user experience - from editorial workflow, to consumer revenue, to commercial

• Has a deep understanding, built through relationships with editorial, of editorial workflow and the impact of front end design decisions on it

• Collaborates successfully with the cross functional team, leading by example with open communication and constructive feedback 

• Presents complex concepts clearly in verbal and written form. Capable of getting in the weeds with their team and also highlighting top-level takeaways to senior leadership.

• Actively coaches the ICs on their team toward stronger communication in cross-functional settings

Champion the brand

• Collaborate closely with key creative partners within the Vogue team, to create a cohesive, cross platform brand experience

• Build and nurture partnerships with brand stakeholders, to represent the spirit of Vogue in our design outcomes

• Ensure that design system and platform developments reflect the needs and standards of the brand.

Who you are:

• Experience leading large, complex projects, spanning both UX and UI

• Experience working with design systems and scalable approaches

• Experience managing multiple stakeholders and working in cross functional teams - in close partnership with Product and Engineering

• Proven skills as a self-starter who can manage projects in a fast-paced environment and remain focused amidst frequently changing requirements.

• Keen interest in fashion and storytelling 

It would be a bonus to have:

• Experience working in media / publishing or with a content rich product

• Experience working for fashion and / or beauty brands 

• Experience working on e-commerce products, particularly in the fashion and beauty sectors

• Experience designing for subscription acquisition and retention, and membership user experiences

• Experience working in matrixed organisations with distributed teams across multiple time zones

What benefits do we offer? 

• 25 days holiday and extra days of annual leave for life events 

• Core hours 

• Competitive pension scheme 

• Bupa Private Healthcare 

• Enhanced maternity leave and family leave 

• Season ticket loans 

• Cycle to work scheme 

• Employee Assistance programme 

• Bring your dog to work 

• A wide variety of wellness benefits including gym discounts 

• Discounts and Magazine Subscriptions

• Employee Resource Groups to provide a platform for employees to identify shared objectives, exchange ideas, and work on community priorities for our global workforce 

• Condé Nast Learning Hub where you’ll find all Condé Nast-developed learning courses and training, and over 16,000+ courses in seven local languages

What happens next?

If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply below, and we will review your application as soon as possible. You can update your resume or upload a cover letter at any time by accessing your candidate profile.

Condé Nast is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, familial status and other legally protected characteristics.