LOCATION
London
SALARY
£33,500
JOB ADDED
2 months ago
Michael Joseph are looking for a highly creative and versatile Designer to join our award-winning Art department.
You’ll breathe new life into our non-fiction illustrated books, creating new looks for established brand authors and helping to turn little-known stories into tomorrow’s bestsellers.
About Michael Joseph (MJ)
Penguin Michael Joseph publishes some of the world’s most popular authors. We specialise in women’s fiction, crime, thriller, cookery, memoir and lifestyle books. Many of our authors are now, or soon will be, household names, here in the UK and around the world. We seek out the very best authors in their field and bring their books to the widest possible audience. We take an author’s vision and turn it into a beautiful book people can’t help but talk about. In a crowded market, our books shine.
Our MJ cookery and lifestyle authors include Nadiya Hussain, Dawn French, Stephen Fry, James Norbury, Clare Andrews, Giuseppe Federici, Gary Barlow, Dominique Woolf, Kay Barron and Seema Pankhania.
The Opportunity
Joining a team of 8 and reporting into the Head of Design for Illustrated Books, you’ll be responsible for working on book covers and insides across a range of illustrated non-fiction books including cookery, self-help, fashion and gift.
You can expect to be inputting into weekly covers meetings with the publishing teams and working closely with colleagues in Production, Editorial, Sales and Marketing and Publicity.
Your unrivalled imagination will enable you to bring new ideas to life and you won’t shy away from taking creative risks to achieve fantastic results with each project. You’ll work super creativity and think outside the box, montaging images and playing with colour, figures, fonts and more to produce the best covers in the business. You’ll be expected to attend photoshoots, providing art direction, and be responsible for selecting images to go into layout.
What you’ll bring
We’re looking for someone who has experience working on illustrated books, although not necessarily within adult non-fiction. What you will have, is an in-depth knowledge of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop and have a complete understanding of how an illustrated book is put together. You’ll also be confident with typography, being able to pair fonts with flair and have an awareness of type hierarchies.
You’ll be creative, organised and a keen eye for detail. While the Art department is a team of 8, only 2 people work on illustrated titles, so you’ll be confident working both independently and part of a larger team, also liaising with external suppliers, freelancers, photographers and illustrators providing feedback and creative guidance.
Overall, you’ll be a champion for your book and be able to drive the vision forward from design concepts through to finished products.
How to apply
If this sounds like your next role, please apply by Sunday 6th October. Apply with your CV and some select parts of your portfolio in place of your cover letter. Show us your best work!
What you can expect from us:
Salary: Up to £33,500 depending on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.
Competitive benefits package:
Our people are the heart of our business, and we work hard to support a culture of responsibility and recognition.
Our benefits include:
Financial – income protection, life assurance, childcare allowance
Well-being – healthcare cash plan, critical illness cover, health checks
Lifestyle – enhanced parental leave, tech scheme
For our full benefits list please visit: https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/what-we-offer/
Hybrid working:
While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. Michael Joseph colleagues work in our Embassy Gardens office 2 days a week, with flexibility on what days. We’re happy to discuss this further as part of the recruitment process.
About Penguin:
We’re the UK’s largest publisher, made up of some 2,000 people and publishing over 1,500 books each year. Our doors are open to all kinds of talent. In a constantly evolving industry, we work hard to stretch the definition of the word publisher. Here, you’ll work with a breadth of talent who all play their part to make each of our books a success. Together, we make books for everyone because a book can change anyone.
The recruitment process: You can read about our recruitment process at https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/how-we-hire/
As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. Essential criteria are listed in bold in the candidate profile section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview.
We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your request.
Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.