Design Manager

@properties, a brand under Compass, is looking for a visionary Design Manager to drive groundbreaking corporate marketing that sets our brand apart. This role requires a bold creative leader who thrives on pushing boundaries, developing innovative marketing campaigns, and inspiring a team of designers to elevate the brand.

Working closely with internal stakeholders, the Design Manager will play a critical role in executing high-impact corporate marketing initiatives, ensuring our visual storytelling and brand identity remain at the forefront of the real estate industry.

Please note: this role is in office Monday - Thursday in Chicago, IL.

 Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and Inspire: Manage and mentor the day to day of a team of graphic designers, leading weekly meetings, fostering collaboration, and encouraging creativity that pushes industry norms.
• Innovate & Execute: Develop and oversee cutting-edge corporate marketing campaigns that enhance brand visibility and engagement.
• Big-Picture Thinking: Spearhead large-scale projects and events, ensuring seamless execution while delegating tasks efficiently across the team.
• Strategic Collaboration: Partner with internal stakeholders to bring fresh ideas to life, ensuring alignment with brand goals and market trends.
• AI Design Leadership: Owns and evolves the use of AI across creative and design processes. Defines standards, workflows, and best practices that integrate AI into concept development, production, and iteration while maintaining brand quality and creative integrity.
• Team Enablement & Education: Coaches and upskills the design team in advanced AI-assisted design methods, driving more strategic, efficient, and sophisticated use of AI.
• Creative Oversight & Feedback: Ensure all corporate marketing materials—digital, print, and experiential—are visually compelling, cohesive, and strategically aligned, providing initial design feedback to the team. Projects will include but are not limited to event brand identities, video concepts and storyboards, animated graphics, print collateral, strategic brand campaigns, print and digital advertisements, email campaigns, social media graphics, signage, presentations, large-scale event collateral, and experitiental activations
• Project Management: Balance creative vision with practical execution, managing timelines, deliverables, and internal expectations.
• Embraces Innovation: Continuously explores new design trends, AI tools, and emerging technologies to enhance creative output.
• Future-Focused Mindset: Anticipates industry shifts and proactively adjusts strategies to keep the team and brand at the forefront of design innovation

Must Be:                                                                                                                                                     

• A Creative Risk-Taker – Someone who isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo and redefine what corporate marketing looks like in real estate.
• A Strong Leader – Experience managing and motivating designers, helping them grow while maintaining high creative standards.
• An Effective Collaborator – Ability to work closely with leadership, incorporating strategic input while maintaining a strong design perspective.
• A Master of Execution – Experience leading large-scale campaigns and projects from concept to completion, including delegation and resource management.
• A Branding Expert – Deep understanding of branding, typography, color, layout, and visual storytelling.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Qualifications:

• Seven or more years of related work experience
• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional and highly creative design
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
• Experience in creating graphics for different social media platforms
• Extraordinary attention to detail and the ability to produce error-free work
• Proven ability to uphold established creative standards and brand consistency across all projects
• Proficiency in AI-powered creative tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, Adobe Firefly 
• Demonstrated expertise in applying generative AI to creative and design workflows, with a proven ability to develop scalable prompt systems, evaluation frameworks, and team practices
• Strong understanding of spatial design and the ability to execute impactful large-scale installations; prior work in environmental of experiential design is a plus
• A passion for design, ability to anticipate and stay abreast of graphic design trends
• Strong creative thinking, aesthetic and layout skills
• Impeccable file management, organizational and time management skills

Compensation: The base pay range for this position is $95,000-$110,000; however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Bonuses and restricted stock units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a full range of benefits. Base pay is based on market location. Minimum wage for the position will always be met.