Head of Creative Direction and Design

Job Introduction

The Head of Creative Direction and Design at Selfridges plays a pivotal leadership role in interpreting and delivering our creative vision through world-class design, storytelling and direction setting across all touchpoints. 

Working in close partnership with the Creative Director, they will lead the direction of Selfridges’ brand expression—physical and digital—ensuring every creative output is bold, relevant, future-facing and emotionally resonant.

This role is essential in translating our creative strategies into actionable, impactful, and culturally meaningful work that drives our ambition to Reinvent Retail and fulfils our purpose to Imagine and Create a Sustainable Future. They will be both a guardian and innovator of Selfridges' design language—championing creative excellence while embedding effective systems, processes and standards to enable cross-functional collaboration and executional brilliance.

They will lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for delivering forward thinking outputs spanning; Creative concepts, Creative Direction, Research and Innovation, Ideas development, Design Direction, Strategy and masterplan, Product direction, Campaign Direction as well as Experience, Art and Build direction —always ensuring our creative output is elevated, distinctive, and on brand. 

The Role Requires the Following Experience:

• Proven creative and design leadership experience within a high-impact, brand-led environment—ideally in fashion, luxury, lifestyle, editorial or cultural institutions;
• Track record of delivering complex creative projects across digital and physical environments at scale;
• Deep understanding of conceptual design, art direction, graphic design, spatial/environmental design and digital content creation;
• Experience of developing and maintaining brand systems, creative processes and governance structures;
• Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams, foster collaboration, and inspire high levels of creative thinking and execution;
• Skilled in building cross-functional relationships and influencing at senior levels;
• Strategic and commercial mindset with an instinctive understanding of customer behaviour and cultural context;
• Affinity with Selfridges’ brand values, aesthetic and cultural positioning.

Key Areas of Accountability:

• Creative Execution of Vision:
   Translates the overarching creative direction set by the Creative Director into tangible, high-impact creative and design outputs across all brand channels—physical and digital.
• Design Leadership:
   Owns and develops the Selfridges design language and graphic guidelines, ensuring consistency, quality, clarity and distinctiveness across all formats—from editorial content to windows, signage, environmental graphics and experience design. 
• Campaign & Content Realisation:
   Leads the concepting and execution of brand campaigns and cultural storytelling, ensuring these resonate emotionally with our customers and reflect our fashion and lifestyle point of view.
• Strategy and Masterplan: Leads the concepting of future facing Selfridges projects that keep the brand at the forefront of retail in its ever-changing landscape. 
• Art & Culture Strategy and implementation: Own and deliver the Selfridges Art and Culture Strategy ensuring Selfridges has a leading point of view on Arts and Culture – always maintaining relevance and poignance with its commissions. 
• Research and Innovation: Oversees the Creative research and innovation function ensuring that the Creative Direction team is kept at the zeitgeist and sharing the latest movements in art, fashion, culture, food, design, customer, social and beyond.
• Creative Systems & Standards:
   Establishes the frameworks, systems and processes to support creative development and delivery at scale, while maintaining high creative standards and supporting efficient cross-functional working. E.g. toolkits, guidelines, concept decks, strategic briefs
• Multidisciplinary Team Leadership:
   Inspires, directs and develops a team of designers, conceptors, strategists and ideators —ensuring creative excellence and a high standard of output across all projects.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
   Works closely with key stakeholders across Buying, Retail, Windows, Property/Design, Brand Partnerships, Design, Experience, Digital, Marketing, PR and VM to ensure integrated creative and design alignment across all brand experiences.
• External Collaborations:
   Supports the Creative Director in identifying and partnering with world-class creative talent, agencies and cultural institutions—bringing fresh provocation and global perspectives into our creative output.
• Talent & Team Development:
  Builds and nurtures a high-performing, diverse and inclusive creative and design team, ensuring the right capabilities, structures and culture are in place to drive innovation and excellence.

Selfridges has always been much more than a shop. We’re a social space where everyone is welcome and feels a sense of belonging, a creative playground where culture and commerce collide, and an experimental hub where you can discover the most innovative and sustainable ideas in retail. We’re here to help make the world brighter. And you can be an important part of this. We’ll talk more about the role below, but before we get to that, let’s share with you the good stuff…  

Rewards and benefits 

Life at Selfridges is dynamic, exciting, and always evolving. As well as working with some of the most cutting-edge, iconic and boundary-pushing brands, designers and creatives, we also offer our team members opportunities to help make a positive difference through our network of communities, both within and outside Selfridges. Here are just a few of our rewards and benefits that help make our team experience that bit more extraordinary. 

• Flexible working options to benefit you, your family and your wellbeing that can include part-time, flexi-time, job sharing or hybrid working
• Generous annual leave that increases with length of service 
• Up to five paid volunteering days – from beach cleans to co-ordinating food and clothing donations 
• Family leave that suits your set up including Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Surrogacy and Shared Parental leave policies 
• Defined pension contribution scheme  
• Generous bonus and/or commission scheme  
• Enviable team member discount including sale previews and double discount days 
• Exclusive local discounts on a range of restaurants, bars, beauticians and entertainment 
• Subsidised gym memberships  
• Annual travel pass and cycle-to-work schemes  
• A sustainable car salary sacrifice scheme 
• Several internal communities to get involved in who are leading the charge on D,E&I and sustainability 
• Workplace Options, our confidential team member assistance programme for when life gets tricky or you need a little guidance 
• Access to a wide range of training programmes to help your career development

Selfridges