Design Director - 3D & Motion

We are looking for a Design Director specialised in 3D to join our Design & Production team in London, initially on a 3-month contract with the view to extend.

Working alongside the other Directors within the Design team, you’ll lead the agency's 3D and motion output on one of our global technology clients.

Function overview

Design & Production

We are a tight-knit team of 3D artists & animators, designers & illustrators, photographers & videographers, coders & brand builders who create thumb-smashing content for some of the biggest brands in the world.

You will work closely with a whole host of departmental specialists, from Insights to Community to Strategy, to deliver transformational social-first work for our clients. Our Conversational Creative relies on innovation, through a deep knowledge of the latest platform features and production techniques, combined with an acute understanding of what people are talking about and why it's important to them and their communities.

To be a part of the Design & Production team, you must be a pixel-loving, idea-generating, creative collaborator who likes to tell stories that move.

Specific bullets on role

Technology
You will own the creative and the craft on product-led work, taking hero devices and client briefs from client CAD and product data through to photoreal CGI branded content that gets their audiences interested. Turning that into launch films, social cutdowns, key visuals and always-on content. You will set the visual bar for how these products are seen, and you will be hands-on in setting it.

3D & motion craft

• Own the end-to-end 3D pipeline: concept, look development, modelling, shading, lighting, animation, rendering and compositing.
• Build and art direct complex animation sequences in Cinema 4D and After Effects, delivered to both broadcast and social specifications
• Set and maintain scene, shader, naming and render standards so work is consistent, reusable and clean to hand over
• Interrogate client CAD and 3D source files early, and flag what is missing or unusable before it becomes a delivery risk
• Own quality control on every frame that leaves the department

Creative direction & clients

• Lead creative direction on 3D and motion projects from brief through to final delivery. This isn’t just fancy whip pans of products, its building stories and advertising effectively.
• Confidently present, explain and defend work to clients, and build the relationships that let good work through
• Translate technical constraints into plain language for clients, strategists and account teams
• Contribute to and shape pitches and concepts for new work, helping sell the agency’s 3D and motion capability

Pipeline, planning & resourcing

• Working with our Studio Manager, you will schedule and sequence 3D deliveries across multiple concurrent projects, building in render time, review rounds and contingency
• Write clear, unambiguous briefs for freelance 3D artists, animators and external studios, and manage their output to deadline, budget and quality
• Work with Production and account teams on timings, budgets and realistic client-facing deadlines

Team

• Share knowledge — tools, techniques and workflow
• Stay across developments in real-time, procedural and AI-assisted 3D workflows, and bring the genuinely useful ones into the pipeline

Ideal

• Experienced creative with 6+ years in 3D and motion design, with significant time on technology, consumer electronics or automotive brands
• Deep, demonstrable Cinema 4D expertise across modelling, lighting, shading, animation and rendering
• Strong After Effects and wider Adobe CC skills for compositing, edit and finishing
• Experience leading teams and overseeing multiple, diverse projects simultaneously
• Agency background, with an understanding of social-first delivery and platform specifications
• A reel that proves the craft — photoreal advertising product work especially

Essential

• Cinema 4D — advanced – Animation, modelling, texturing, lighting
• Physically based rendering — Redshift preferred - Octane, Arnold or equivalent
• After Effects — motion graphics, compositing and finishing
• Photoreal product visualisation and hard-surface
• End-to-end pipeline ownership and technical problem solving
• Client-facing confidence — presenting, pitching and creative direction
• Scheduling and resourcing 3D deliveries
• Briefing and managing freelancers and external studios
• Meticulous attention to detail — lead on quality control
• Excellent communicator

Extensive Knowledge In

• Cinema 4D (essential)
• Redshift, Octane or Arnold (essential)
• After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere (essential)
• Houdini, Blender, Unreal Engine or Substance (desirable)
• Familiarity with CAD and interchange formats and their clean-up — STEP, OBJ, FBX, USD, Alembic (desirable)