Lead Graphic Designer

Lead Graphic Designer

Location: Tetbury, Gloucestershire, with one day a week working from home

Salary: £42,000–£48,000 per year (DOE)

Hours: Full-time, 8.30am-5pm

About Woodlodge

Woodlodge is the UK’s leading supplier of gardenware, specialising in pots, planters and outdoor

living products stocked by garden centres and retailers across the UK and Europe. The family

business has been trading since 1987, prioritising product quality and end-to-end customer

service.

We are looking for an experienced Lead Graphic Designer to join our in-house Design team,

leading the day-to-day creative output of the team while remaining hands-on across a wide range

of projects.

The Role

This role will be central to the day-to-day running and creative output of our in-house Design team.

The Lead Graphic Designer will take ownership of the design workflow, managing and filtering

incoming briefs, setting priorities and allocating work across the team to ensure projects are

delivered efficiently, accurately and to a consistently high creative standard.

You’ll lead and support our Graphic Designer and Artworker, providing clear creative direction,

and constructive feedback, while remaining hands-on across key projects from initial brief and

concept development through to final delivery.

Working closely with Sales, Product and Category teams, you’ll help turn commercial

requirements into clear, effective creative briefs and ensure the team is focused on the right

priorities. You’ll also act as a guardian of Woodlodge and its portfolio of brands, maintaining

consistency while helping develop and evolve their visual identities.

This is a hands-on leadership role requiring strong creative thinking, commercial awareness and

the ability to manage both people and processes effectively. You’ll be equally comfortable

developing a creative concept, designing a major catalogue, reviewing artwork, managing

competing priorities or improving the systems and workflows that help the team work efficiently.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day creative output and workflow of the Design team.

• Manage and filter incoming design requests, challenging and clarifying briefs where

needed, setting priorities and allocating work across the team.

• Manage, support and develop our Graphic Designer and Artworker, providing clear

direction, constructive feedback and regular guidance.

• Develop creative concepts and design across packaging, catalogues, POS, exhibitions,

sales materials and digital content.

• Take ownership of key projects from initial brief and concept development through to final

delivery.

• Maintain a high standard of creative output across the Design team, reviewing work and

providing creative direction where required.

• Act as a guardian of Woodlodge and its portfolio of brands, maintaining consistency while

helping evolve their visual identities.

• Work closely with Senior Leadership, Sales, Product and Category Managers to translate

commercial requirements into clear briefs and effective, engaging design solutions.

• Balance creative requests, business priorities, deadlines and available resource to ensure

the team is focused on the right work at the right time.

• Manage multiple projects and changing priorities, ensuring work is delivered accurately,

on time and to a high standard.

• Design and manage large, detail-heavy projects involving significant amounts of product

and SKU information.

• Develop and maintain templates, guidelines and creative toolkits to improve consistency

and efficiency across the business.

• Work closely with our in-house printer and external production partners to ensure designs

translate accurately into finished printed artwork.

• Maintain clear and organised design files, assets and working processes across the team.

• Identify and implement improvements to design workflows, briefing processes and ways

of working.

• Identify opportunities to use new tools and technology to improve the speed, consistency

and quality of creative production across the team.

About You

• Strong experience as a Lead or Senior Graphic Designer, with experience providing

creative direction and managing or mentoring other designers.

• A strong portfolio demonstrating excellent creative thinking, typography, layout and visual

storytelling.

• Experience developing concepts and taking projects from brief through to final delivery.

• Confident leading a small creative team, setting priorities, allocating work and providing

constructive feedback.

• Comfortable managing incoming briefs and balancing creative ambition with deadlines,

resource and wider commercial priorities.

• Excellent knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, particularly InDesign, Illustrator and

Photoshop.

• Strong understanding of print and production, ideally including catalogues, packaging,

POS and large-format graphics.

• Comfortable working on large, detailed documents and managing significant amounts of

product information accurately.

• Confident using, or keen to develop your use of, AI-assisted creative tools as part of the

design process.

• A strong eye for lifestyle photography.

• Excellent organisational skills and strong attention to detail.

• Able to manage multiple priorities and remain pragmatic when requirements or deadlines

change.

• Commercially aware, proactive and comfortable taking ownership of creative decisions.

• Comfortable working independently while collaborating closely with colleagues across

the wider business.

• Experience within retail, home, garden, interiors or another product-led consumer brand

would be an advantage.

What Good Looks Like in This Role

• You’ll be someone the team can rely on to bring clarity and direction to a busy creative

workload. You’ll understand what needs doing, ask the right questions, filter and prioritise

requests and make sure work is allocated appropriately across the team.

• You’ll take ownership of important briefs yourself while knowing when to delegate,

providing the direction and support others need to produce their best work.

• You’ll balance creative ambition with commercial and practical requirements, maintaining

a high level of accuracy and attention to detail while ensuring deadlines and business

priorities are understood and managed.

• You’ll help make the Design team easier and more effective to work with by bringing

clarity, consistency and structure to briefs, priorities, projects, assets and creative

systems.

• Ultimately, you’ll take ownership of both the quality of the creative work and the way that

work moves through the team.