Marketing Design Director, EWC/ENC in London

At EFG (ESL FACEIT Group) we create worlds beyond gameplay where players and fans become community. We pride ourselves in having a corporate social responsibility which is that "IT'S NOT GG, UNTIL IT'S GG FOR ALL". We are passionate about the culture we foster that ultimately helps to create and shape the world of esports, gaming tournaments, leagues, events and holistic ecosystems staged for our millions of players, fans and heroes. Everything we do, from global esports tournaments and community-driven leagues to next-generation platforms and live events, is rooted in our passion, craftsmanship, and culture. With millions of players and fans around the world, we aim to shape the future of esports and gaming by building ecosystems that are inclusive, innovative, and enduring.

Purpose of Role: As the Marketing 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• Track team capacity, workload health, and delivery against deadlines.
• Uphold the EWC and ENC visual identity as defined in the Brand Bible.
• Apply the existing sub-brand visual systems within their defined guardrails.
• Understand and oversee all creative output across the team.
• Set quality standards and review gates so nothing ships without clearing the bar.
• Run regular brand audits across markets and channels to catch visual drift early.
• Maintain templates, component libraries, shared assets, and the design tooling stack.
• Partner closely with client stakeholders, Marketing, and Content teams on the visual layer of broadcast, video, and motion output.
• Present design work to client stakeholders, lead review and feedback sessions, and drive revisions.
• Support delivery of localised visual assets across priority markets.

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.
• 8+ years of experience in design or art direction roles, with at least 4 years leading design teams.
• Proven track record managing design teams of 5+, including hiring, mentoring, performance management, and scaling capacity.
• Strong experience running a design production queue or studio.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating visual craft across multiple disciplines.
• Deep proficiency in Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Experience operating in high-velocity production environments.
• Exceptional communication and feedback skills.
• Cultural sensitivity and judgement when operating across global markets.
• Ability to operate as Art Director and Project Manager in one.
• A mindset that balances creative ambition with discipline.
• Fluent in English (written and spoken).
• Passion for esports, gaming, and digital culture.

Firmly rooted in our values, EFG is an affirmative action employer that celebrates being an equal opportunity workplace.