Design Director, EWC/ENC

Purpose of Role:

As Design Director for EWC and ENC, you lead the design team responsible for every visual asset across the Esports World Cup and Esports Nations Cup. You oversee a team of designers and manage the full design production queue that powers both tournaments throughout the year, from announcement campaigns and marketing materials (digital through out-of-home), to seven weeks of live tournament output and post-event celebrations. At your core, you are both Art Director and executor: someone who brings good taste, sharp creative instincts, and the project management discipline to see work through from brief to delivery. You make sure the right designer is on the right brief at the right time, every output clears the visual bar set by the brand bibles, and the team performs with consistency and throughput under high-pressure seasonal load.

You uphold that system across every output, every market, every channel. You own the team, the queue, the quality bar, and the throughput. You bring a strong creative point of view, you can look at a piece and know immediately if it’s right, and you push the work to be better while staying within the guardrails of the existing guidelines. You review and provide feedback on all creatives internally before anything reaches the client, acting as the first and last line of quality control. You help iterate and develop the design language together with internal and external stakeholders.

You operate as a peer to the Senior Director Content, partnering closely on the visual layer that connects static, motion, and broadcast output.

Responsibilities: 

• Lead and develop a team of designers spanning brand application, key art, motion design, social design, broadcast graphics, and event or environmental design. Hire, onboard, mentor, and manage day-to-day performance, building a high-craft team culture where good taste is non-negotiable.
• Act as Art Director and executor in one: you don’t just direct from a distance, you’re in the work; reviewing, shaping, and pushing every piece of creative to be sharper, more considered, and more impactful before it leaves the team.
• Own the internal creative review process: nothing ships to the client without passing through a structured internal feedback loop. You provide clear, constructive direction at every stage, ensuring the team is aligned and the work is always at its best before external eyes see it.
• Define team operating rhythms,  planning cycles, stand-ups, design reviews, retrospectives, so the team delivers consistently under high-pressure timelines and seasonal load peaks.
• Source and manage a pool of freelance designers and external studios to scale capacity during peak tournament periods, particularly the Live phase. Brief them, integrate them into the team, and hold them to exactly the same quality bar.
• Own end-to-end management of the design production queue across EWC and ENC, partnering with the Creative Delivery Manager on brief intake, prioritisation, capacity planning, and throughput.
• Run resource allocation across competing workstreams (Marketing, Content, Social, Broadcast, Partnerships, Ticketing, Festival) so the right designer is on the right brief at the right time, balancing urgency, complexity, and team development.
• Track team capacity, workload health, and delivery against deadlines. Escalate scope, timeline, or resourcing risks early so nothing silently slips.
• Uphold the EWC and ENC visual identity as defined in the Brand Bible, ensuring the triangle motif, colour palette, typography, and design principles (Grand, Dynamic, Sharp) are applied with consistency across every output. Champion the brand from the inside, you understand it deeply enough to push it forward creatively without losing what makes it distinct.
• Apply the existing sub-brand visual systems (Road to EWC, Festival, Content Creator Park, Embassy) within their defined guardrails, ensuring each output ladders up to the EWC parent brand. Be creative and push the work within those guardrails; the goal is not just consistency, but creative excellence.
• Understand and oversee all creative output across the team, not just at a glance, but in full. You can read a brief, understand the intent, and translate it accurately into a visual direction that hits for every channel and every audience.
• Set quality standards and review gates so nothing ships without clearing the bar. Hold final visual approval authority for high-stakes outputs (key art, campaign launches, broadcast packages, venue dressing, retail merchandise). Translate briefs from Marketing, Content, Partnerships, Ticketing, Social, Broadcast, and the Foundation into precise visual execution.
• Run regular brand audits across markets and channels to catch visual drift early. Provide structured, actionable feedback to designers, freelancers, and external studios so the craft level rises over time.
• Maintain templates, component libraries, shared assets, and the design tooling stack (Figma, Adobe Creative Cloud, asset management, automation), keeping the design ops infrastructure healthy and scalable.
• Partner closely with client stakeholders, Marketing, and Content teams on the visual layer of broadcast, video, and motion output, ensuring a shared visual language across static and moving assets without duplicating effort.
• Present design work to client stakeholders, lead review and feedback sessions, and drive revisions so the output gets stronger through every round, while protecting the creative bar and the team’s work.
• Support delivery of localised visual assets across priority markets (KSA, MENA, China, India, UK, France, LATAM, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan), applying the brand system with awareness of regional and cultural sensitivities.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication, Graphic Design, Art Direction, or a related creative field  or equivalent work experience.
• Demonstrable good taste: a strong creative eye and the ability to recognise and articulate the difference between work that’s good and work that’s exceptional - and the drive to get there.
• 8+ years of experience in design or art direction roles, with at least 4 years leading design teams, preferably in esports, gaming, sports, entertainment, music, or large-scale live events.
• Proven track record managing design teams of 5+, including hiring, mentoring, performance management, and scaling capacity with freelancers and external studios.
• Strong experience running a design production queue or studio: brief intake, prioritisation, capacity planning, workload allocation, and delivery against tight deadlines across multiple concurrent workstreams.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating visual craft across multiple disciplines (key art, campaign design, social, motion graphics, broadcast or environmental design), with clear examples of disciplined execution within established brand systems.
• Deep proficiency in Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud; familiarity with motion tools (After Effects, Cinema 4D), prototyping, and design ops automation.
• Demonstrable experience working inside an established brand system, applying it consistently across many outputs and many channels without re-inventing it.
• Experience operating in high-velocity production environments with simultaneous workstreams, tight deadlines, and seasonal capacity peaks (e.g. tournament Live phases, festival production cycles).
• Exceptional communication and feedback skills, with the ability to brief designers, give clear creative direction, defend the bar, and collaborate with senior stakeholders and cross-functional peers.
• Experience presenting creative work to clients or senior stakeholders and translating their feedback into stronger output, comfortable defending decisions and absorbing direction.
• Cultural sensitivity and judgement when operating across global markets (MENA, Asia, Europe, the Americas), with awareness of regional and geopolitical context.
• Comfort working alongside marketing strategy partners (in-house or external agency), translating their concepts, messaging, and campaign direction into disciplined visual execution.
• Ability to operate as Art Director and Project Manager in one; you can set the creative direction, own the execution plan, and see a brief through to final delivery without losing either the creative or the operational thread.
• A mindset that balances creative ambition with discipline: you know how to push boundaries, find unexpected angles, and elevate work, while staying within the guardrails of the existing brand guidelines.
• Fluent in English (written and spoken).
• Passion for esports, gaming, and digital culture.