Concept Designer

Job Title: Concept Designer

Location: Unilever R&D – Leeds (hybrid)

JOB PURPOSE

Personal Care is a €15bn business globally and is the home of outstanding brands that deliver personal hygiene, self-care, and confidence to billions of people. We hold some of Unilever’s strongest market positions. We aim for market-beating growth supported by increased investment on the core brands, funded via gross margin recovery. Where we will play: We focus on our core categories and top brands to win with our key channels and top customers. How we will win: (1) We Make it Premium – leading category value growth via core innovation delivering Holistic Product Superiority. (2) We Make it Profitable – unlocking structural margin challenges via premiumisation & technology & radical simplification. (3) We Make it Positive – leveraging our scale and brands for impact, delivering on our commitments for people and for planet. (4) We Make it Personal - leadership through service, humility, and care for all our stakeholders.

The Personal Care Design Team are a group of ambitious and visionary design leaders residing in our R&D organisation responsible for transforming the creative culture of Personal Care projects and people by promoting and implementing best practices in creative problem-solving processes, tools, and techniques.

The main purpose of your role as a Concept Designer will be to demonstrate the power of design in early project stages. Your job is the right integration of methods and insights from the beginning to turn concepts into design opportunities with great value for both our consumers and our brands. The goal is to deliver holistic experiences that help showcase internal capabilities in physical, digital, brand and service design.

The Concept Designer also drives experience as a key unlocking factor for future innovation at a project level. They will positively influence project partners by providing guidance on how an experience-based approach can help elevate our PC brands and their priority projects to measure superiorly.

By conducting design research and connecting with other disciplines and external partners, you will give identity and purpose to projects. To express insights and design opportunities compelling and accurately, you should be able to use a broad range of storytelling and prototyping methods. You will closely collaborate with brand & R&D teams in developing of convincing value propositions by design. Over time, you will therefore gain significant responsibility for the impact of design in front-end innovation as well as the overall representation of the design team as a strategic and executional partner.

WHY JOIN PERSONAL CARE DESIGN

Joining Personal Care Design means working within a dedicated and ambitious design team on the development of high impact brand innovation. Unilever offers an agile and open-minded environment with strong and passionate thinkers and doers who are constantly seeking to improve purpose in terms of brand, people, sustainability, technology & business growth.

As a job holder in Personal Care Design you will have the chance to collaborate with and guide multi-disciplinary teams and external partners in order to create value and meet consumer needs with convincing and meaningful Design solutions. Within Personal Care Design you will have the chance to grow further by various training initiatives both inside and outside design.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Utilise design thinking tools and methodologies to lead teams through the Explore phase of projects
• Manage individual Experience Design projects, co-create project timelines, and report progress to the Experience Design Lead
• Collaborate with strategic agencies to deliver transformational design concepts beyond just packaging
• Engage with brand leaders to develop product and service experiences that present new value to the business
• Drive design consistency across all touchpoints by aligning with other functions and integrating them in the design process
• Collaborate with Consumer Insight function and cross-functional teams to ensure Experience Design and prototypes deliver against key experience metrics, meet consumer requirements and business demands
• Embody early prototyping as a tool to create new opportunities and solve existing challenges, not only within the design team
• Shape creative and conceptual frameworks for design projects to emphasize the value of design
• Master trends & insights collection in order to identify opportunities and set direction
• Develop experience prototypes and scenario roadmaps to qualify design opportunities
• Showcase opportunities with advanced visualization and communication tools
• Where required, co-author and facilitate workshops using design thinking techniques to help explore strategy and project futures
• Where required, research, pilot, and implement new capabilities (both physical & digital) within our design ecosystem to build upon any skills or knowledge gaps

ALL ABOUT YOU

• Impressive portfolio of proven track record of engaging multi-disciplinary project work.
• Experience in contributing design project work that have helped a brand grow.
• A passion for outstanding consumer experience, demonstrating creativity and how they arrive at the best possible solution.
• Project experience and knowledge of designing for different channels and touchpoints.
• Collaborative approach to creativity as a team effort.
• Self-starter, growth mindset in relation to personal development and their own creative capability.
• Is a design thinker AND doer demonstrating logical thinking and practical hand skills together as one.
• Attention to technical detail, the ability to fixate on the ritualistic details while maintaining an overarching view to achieve excellence.
• Strong communication and visualization skills, especially in the area of early concepting
• Storytelling experience in communicating technical ideas to non-technical audiences
• Generate concepts through sketching and 3D modelling, ensuring that the concepts meet manufacturing, supply chain, and brand guidelines
• Adept in 3D modelling and rendering software
• Adept in using Adobe Creative Suite, as well as traditional sketching (both digitally & pen and paper)
• Good organizational and project management skills
• Basic knowledge of the end-to-end product development process and supporting processes.
• Basic knowledge of common commercial packaging materials, their manufacturing processes, and design implications.
• Knowledge of sustainable design & engineering is a clear advantage
• Ability to think conceptually and globally about a broader range of design projects at the same time
• Competent to distil consumer understanding and needs into opportunity areas for design
• Expertise in and/ or the willingness to drive the use of AI throughout the design process is a clear advantage

EXPERIENCE

We ask for relevant years professional experience in an industrial / product design related role in a corporate, consultancy or agency environment. Ideally, you hold a degree within the area of industrial design, marketing, branding or innovation. Preferred are candidates who are experienced in making delightful experiences within the constraints of industrial design.

POTENTIAL NEXT STEPS

We invest in opportunities for development and personal growth for our employees and enable a working culture that embraces diversity. Depending on your own development, you will have the chance to evolve further in Personal Care Design.

APPLICATION DETAILS

Please send us a great reason why you would be a matching candidate for us, your resume and a portfolio or comprehensive outline of your previous responsibilities in Experience Design.

BENEFITS

Unilever offers a competitive compensation package which includes: Medical & Dental Plans, Life Insurance (including eligible spouses, domestic partners & children), Health Care, Flexible Spending, Dependent Care, Retirement & Savings Plans, Tuition Reimbursement, Paid Vacation and Holidays.

NOTES

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.

Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’

What We Offer

Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities, and growing together for better business performance. We want to push boundaries, and have the flexibility needed to keep adapting in an ever-changing, more dynamic world. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

As part of your hiring journey, we are happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments, to improve your recruitment experience.

To find out more, including more information about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here.

Recruitment Fraud

Cyber criminals advertise fake job adverts with prestigious employers as a way of stealing information or even defrauding individuals out of money. In the most sophisticated cases, they will set up fake websites, which have a similar address to companies like Unilever. They even conduct fake telephone interviews and then offer candidates a role with the proviso they pay a fee for background checks or to cover work visa costs. These types of attacks are becoming more common as more people are looking for employment in the economic climate.

How is Unilever tackling this?

Many of Unilever’s recruitment sites publish a warning to candidates about recruitment fraud. The Cyber Security team also proactively scan for signs of people setting up fake Unilever sites and act to close them down.

What can I do?

If you become aware of potential recruitment fraud, spot fake Unilever recruitment adverts or fake LinkedIn profiles, report them via Una Live Chat.

Unilever does not accept responsibility or liability for any candidates who are financially impacted by recruitment fraud. Your vigilance is key!