Design & Visualisations Assistant Manager

M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.

From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.

We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.

As a Design & Visualisations Assistant Manager, you will be responsible for producing Food Guidelines and communications to allow stores to implement monthly phase initiatives.

Key Accountabilities and Measures

Visual Communication Design:

• Working and liaising with all stakeholders within the food business to collate and format information presented in the food guidelines
• Utilising a strong understanding of Adobe InDesign and graphic design skills - Taking strategy information, each phase – info from a speadsheet, word doc, email – using M&S imagery and branding, information needs to be designed/formatted into the guidelines template.
• Manage all content added into the communications to ensure its is not duplicated in other documents and is clear and concise for stores to understand.
• Be readily available for key stakeholders within the Foods business should content need to be communicated to stores at any time on an ad hoc basis
• Occasionally there will be an info page that is specific to an event, product, strategy, feature etc that would need to be formatted using company branding as well as event identity branding – for example easter will have its own branding/lock up that would need to be incorporated into an easter info page.
• Designing of event communication pages in the guidelines - using event branding as well as business brand guidelines
• Progressing, refreshing and digitalising food guidelines and communications to ensure they are inspirational and revolutionary – Liaising with members of the technology solution teams with in IT infrastructure to understand business technology capabilities in head office and in store
• Support Point of Sale design and production/Planning teams with document alignment (POS Checklist front covers)
• Supporting other teams with design work that would feature in store comms – conceptual artwork and mocking things up to show aspects of new strategies clearly

3D Design:

• A good understanding of 3D design and visualisation (preferably Trimble SketchUp + Vray render) – providing 3D renders for guidelines
• An understanding of 3D design (Sketchup) would set a candidate apart from others. This is not a prominent part of the role but would be a valuable skill to be able to support the team when needed
• Working with packaging teams and/or online food graphics system to ensure all packaging within the 3D product library is current and up to date
• Products are created and displayed in 3D visuals each phase to show stores how to layout their event zone tables – each product is modelled in Sketchup to scale using the packaging designs/photographs and then rendered to create an image that is represented in the guidelines

Key Skills

• Strong Communications Skills
• Strong Graphic Design skills – proficient in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop
• Strong understanding of Design principles
• Understanding of Visual Merchandising
• Knowledge of 3D modelling and rendering systems – remaining up to date on new technologies and capabilities (SketchUp is preferable)
• Versatility and resilience to work in a fast and highly demanding retail environment
• Adaptable to change
• Adobe Creative Cloud suite – Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop
• Trimble Sketchup
• V-Ray Render program + add ons

M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact.

We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.

If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.