{"id":3091587,"url":"https://alion.io/job/visualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience","title":"Creative Lead (Shopify Plus & Digital Experience)","company":{"id":8836,"name":"Visualsoft","domain":"visualsoft.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/visualsoft","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":null},"role":"Marketing","role_family":"Marketing","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Stockton, United States","Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom","Manchester, United Kingdom","Birmingham, United Kingdom","London, United Kingdom","Bristol, United Kingdom"],"countries":["US","GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":69000,"max_usd":124000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":34},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Figma","optional":false},{"name":"Shopify","optional":false},{"name":"GA4","optional":true},{"name":"Hotjar","optional":true},{"name":"Lovable","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-22T15:04:28Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-22","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T23:51:29Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"We are looking for a Creative Lead to join our Operations department, working cross-functionally across all delivery pods. This is a senior position responsible for setting and upholding the standard for visual design, user experience and creative delivery across our Shopify practice. You will combine exceptional hands-on design craft with team leadership, commercial awareness and a deep understanding of how successful Shopify experiences are designed, built and maintained.\nYou will lead the design discipline across all delivery pods, working alongside Project Managers, Development Leads, Frontend Developers, Solutions Consultants and Product Owners. Your remit will span discovery, research, creative direction, prototyping, development handoff, production design assurance and ongoing optimisation.\nYou will create distinctive brand experiences within the capabilities of Shopify themes, including Dawn, Horizon, premium themes and our proprietary theme. You will own design architecture and partner with Development Leads on technical implementation, ensuring designs map accurately to theme capabilities and agreed component libraries.\nYou will establish design systems that are actively used in delivery, implement effective AI-assisted workflows, and help win standalone UX/UI and design engagements. Success means improving design quality, creativity, consistency and speed while protecting client outcomes and project profitability.\nLeadership Remit\nThis is a leadership role with hands-on delivery responsibilities on selected strategic or complex projects. You will line manage and develop the design team, set standards across pods and support Sales and Solutions with design opportunities. Routine pod delivery will be led by assigned designers, with your oversight and support. Priorities and capacity across hands-on delivery, management, sales support and practice development will be agreed with the Delivery Director and reviewed regularly.\nKey Responsibilities & Duties\n1. Creative Direction, Design Craft & Quality\nOwn the agency's visual design standard, ensuring work demonstrates strong art direction, typography, composition, imagery, interaction design and brand expression.\nTranslate client positioning and customer needs into distinctive, commercially effective experiences, using reusable theme capabilities creatively.\nLead hands-on design for selected enterprise or strategically important projects, setting a clear example of the expected quality.\nEstablish regular design critiques and quality reviews, providing specific, constructive feedback and approving key outputs before client presentation.\nBalance visual ambition with accessibility, usability, performance, technical feasibility and the agreed budget.\n2. Discovery, Research & Client Communication\nEstablish standardised discovery playbooks, creative briefs, workshop templates and presentation frameworks for the design team.\nDefine customer journeys, user needs, business objectives, content requirements and measurable success criteria with clients and the wider project team.\nLead proportionate customer research, usability testing and analysis of behavioural data, using findings to inform and validate designs before development.\nReview discovery and research outputs for completeness, technical accuracy and alignment with commercial objectives.\nTrain and coach designers to facilitate workshops, explain design decisions, manage feedback and present confidently to senior stakeholders.\nSupport complex enterprise workshops, challenging client discussions and escalations where additional creative leadership is required.\n3. Shopify Theme-Based Design & Merchant Usability\nMaintain a practical understanding of Dawn, Horizon, premium themes and our proprietary theme, including their sections, blocks, templates, settings and responsive behaviour.\nCreate and maintain Figma libraries that map accurately to the selected theme's capabilities and implementation patterns.\nClearly identify native theme capabilities, configurable adaptations and bespoke development within proposed designs, agreeing scope and implications with Solutions and Development Leads.\nDesign for mobile and desktop customer journeys, with particular attention to mobile navigation, product discovery, product selection and purchase flows.\nDesign for merchants maintaining the website, ensuring sections and templates are practical to configure, populate and reuse.\nDocument content and imagery requirements, configuration options and relevant limitations so clients and delivery teams understand how designs will work in practice.\n4. Design Systems & Integration with Development\nBuild, implement and maintain scalable Figma design systems using shared tokens, variables, auto-layout, component properties and documented patterns.\nEstablish agreed mappings between design components and Shopify theme sections, blocks, settings and templates, including components specific to our agency starter theme.\nWork with developers to align design and code libraries through shared naming, documentation, versioning and change processes.\nSpecify responsive behaviour, interaction states, validation, loading, empty and error states, alongside accessibility and content guidance.\nIntegrate design systems into estimation, backlog refinement, development handoff, implementation and quality assurance.\nDefine ownership and approval processes for new components, changes and exceptions, keeping libraries accurate as production implementations evolve.\nSupport Theme App Extensions, checkout extensibility and headless storefront design where required by the agreed project scope, working with the relevant technical specialists.\nAI-Assisted Design & Rapid Prototyping\nImplement and maintain AI-assisted workflows that improve design quality, consistency, speed or delivery cost, with clear evidence of their impact.\nEvaluate and select appropriate tools for ideation, prototyping, asset production and repetitive tasks, based on delivery needs and demonstrated value.\nEstablish reusable briefs, prompts, reference materials and review criteria grounded in client brand guidelines, design systems and Shopify theme capabilities.\nUse interactive prototypes to test customer journeys and clarify requirements, identifying where generated outputs require adaptation before theme implementation.\nMaintain human review of design decisions and generated outputs, checking usability, accessibility, technical feasibility and brand accuracy.\nEstablish appropriate practices for client confidentiality, approved data use, asset provenance and usage rights.\nTrain the team, document effective workflows and measure adoption and results. Assess time savings alongside output quality, rework and tool costs.\n6. Pod Delivery & Commercial Ownership\nPartner with PMs, Solutions Consultants and Development Leads to scope and estimate design work, identify dependencies and agree deliverables and acceptance criteria.\nContribute to capacity planning, backlog refinement and relevant delivery ceremonies, ensuring designers have realistic priorities and sufficient time for quality work.\nOwn design estimates and resource planning with PMs, monitoring budget adherence and addressing delivery risks early.\nManage design feedback, approval milestones and change control, making the impact of additional requirements clear.\nBalance design quality with agreed timelines and budgets, supporting project profitability and reducing avoidable rework.\nMaintain clear decisions, assumptions and handoff documentation so design work can move efficiently between teams.\n7. Standalone Design Opportunities & Sales Support\nHelp position and win standalone UX/UI, discovery and design engagements, including work commissioned independently of development or platform migration.\nWork with Sales and Solutions to qualify opportunities, understand client needs and define a credible design approach and scope.\nLead or support proposals, pitches and portfolio presentations, communicating the commercial value of design and the agency's differentiation.\nDefine deliverables and handoff arrangements for design-only engagements, including projects implemented by a client's internal team or another development partner.\nDevelop case studies that demonstrate the quality of delivered work, the team's contribution and evidenced outcomes.\n8. Accessibility, Production Assurance & Optimisation\nEmbed accessibility requirements in research, design systems, specifications and reviews, working towards the WCAG AA standard agreed for each project.\nCollaborate with developers to balance visual design with page performance and the practical constraints of production implementation.\nReview implemented websites against approved designs across devices, including interactions, content, accessibility and edge cases.\nResolve design discrepancies with developers before launch and ensure agreed design acceptance criteria are met.\nUse post-launch feedback, usability findings and analytics to identify improvements and inform future work.\nAgree optimisation hypotheses and evaluate outcomes with the wider team, recognising that conversion performance is influenced by factors beyond design alone.\n9. Line Management, Mentorship & Practice Development\nConduct regular one-to-ones, coaching, design critiques and presentation practice to develop each designer's craft and client-facing skills.\nSet clear competency expectations and progression paths covering design quality, research, Shopify knowledge, commercial awareness and delivery.\nSupport recruitment and onboarding, assessing candidates against practical evidence and the agency's standards.\nMaintain creative briefs, QA checklists, file organisation and documentation standards across pods.\nMonitor team capacity and capability, escalating resourcing or skills gaps and proposing practical improvements.\nRequirements\nEnterprise Shopify portfolio: A proven portfolio of live enterprise level Shopify and Shopify Plus websites demonstrating exceptional visual design, strong mobile UX and commercially effective customer journeys. Candidates must explain their personal contribution, delivery constraints and evidenced outcomes. Work must extend beyond concepts and prototypes to implemented websites.\nShopify theme-based delivery: A proven track record of designing against Shopify base theme templates, including Dawn, Horizon and premium themes. This must include component libraries that match theme sections, blocks, templates, settings and responsive behaviours, with clear distinctions between native capabilities, configuration and bespoke development.\nDesign systems integrated with development: A proven track record of implementing high quality, scalable design systems actively used by designers and developers. Evidence must cover tokens, reusable components, documented patterns, versioning, governance, adoption and integration into planning, implementation and QA.\nStandalone design wins: A proven track record of winning standalone UX/UI and design projects, including engagements independent of development or migration. Candidates must explain their contribution to qualification, proposals, pitching, commercial positioning, scope and successful delivery.\nSuccessful AI implementation: A proven track record of implementing AI assistance within professional design processes, with evidence of team adoption and measurable improvements in speed, quality, consistency or cost. Candidates must explain the workflows, evaluation methods, human review and safeguards introduced.\nCreative leadership: Extensive eCommerce design experience within an agency or comparable delivery environment, combining hands-on creative direction with line management, mentoring and quality ownership.\nResearch and validation: Practical experience using customer research, usability testing and behavioural evidence to inform and validate design decisions.\nEnterprise stakeholder management: Experience facilitating discover...","description_format":"text","description_chars":17865,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Apple Macbook","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms","Web Development Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-22T15:04:28Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-24T06:24:00+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:0","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/visualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/visualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T23:55:36Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":33856,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":8836},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=8836"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fvisualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fvisualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fvisualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/visualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fvisualsoft-creative-lead-shopify-plus-digital-experience"}]}