Graphic Designer

Volcano Coffee Works roasts specialty coffee in Brixton and makes it easy to get right. We supply cafés, restaurants, gyms, cinemas and workplaces across London and beyond, including running barista stations for WeWork, and we sell to home brewers through our online shop. We're a certified B Corp and part of Full Steam Espresso, alongside our sister brand Assembly Coffee.

Our approach is "specialty simplified": expertise should be useful, never intimidating. We see the businesses we supply as partners, and we judge ourselves by how well their coffee works for them. In January we launch First Shot, a coffee that funds training and paid work placements in hospitality for young people in Brixton and South London.

THE ROLE

Reporting to the Senior Brand Manager, you'll be Volcano's in-house designer, working with our brand and trade marketing team, our commercial team, our ecommerce lead and our in-house Content Producer. It's a small team with plenty of ideas and energy. We're looking for the person who turns those ideas into finished, on-brand work, quickly and consistently.

Volcano has a defined set of design principles that shape everything we make. They set out how our visual language, logo, typography, colour and illustration flex between audiences: more expressive for people buying from us online, more considered for the businesses we supply. You'll know them well enough to apply them to briefs you haven't seen before, without needing an example to work from.

Roughly 60% of the work supports wholesale (sales decks, point of sale, case studies, trade packaging, partner materials) and 40% ecommerce (website, email, social, product). Teams across the business already use AI tools day to day, and we'd like our designer to be open to doing the same.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Turn briefs into finished artwork that meets brand standards first time and within agreed turnaround times
• Use our design principles to solve new problems, from a co-branded menu to a new format of sales deck
• Design pitch decks, point of sale, taste cards, case studies and partner materials for our sales team
• Create assets for our website, email, social media and paid channels, working with our Content Producer
• Prepare print-ready artwork for packaging, labels and print, and manage proofs and production with suppliers
• Brief and manage external illustrators, photographers and motion designers when needed
• Try out tools, including Figma and AI, that make production faster without lowering quality

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 3+ years in a professional design role, ideally in food and drink, hospitality or consumer brands
• A portfolio covering print, packaging and digital, including work applying an existing brand system to new formats
• Confidence making design decisions from brand principles, not only from templates or past examples
• The ability to work at pace without letting standards slip
• Hands-on print production knowledge and a real interest in print and packaging
• Advanced Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) and familiarity with Figma or equivalent
• Openness to using AI tools in your work
• Clear communication: you can take a loose brief, ask the right questions and say when something won't work
• Excellent organisation across several projects and deadlines

WHO WILL THRIVE HERE

You'll join a team that brings lots of ideas, enthusiasm and people focus. You'll do well if you like clear structure, enjoy turning ideas into finished work, and take pride in getting the details right without slowing down.

THE IMPORTANT DETAILS

• Full time, Monday to Friday, with glide time. Flexibility needed for occasional events outside standard hours
• Based at our Brixton roastery. Working from home is possible when there's a need, typically up to around three days a month
• Some travel for events and activations
• Competitive salary based on experience
• 22 days' annual leave plus bank holidays, plus 2 refresh days and 2 charity days a year
• Breakfast on site, plus coffee from our on-site café, Door Coffee Bar
• Regular team activities
• Company pension and cycle to work scheme
• Ongoing learning and development, including accredited third-party training and coaching platforms

HOW TO APPLY

Apply with your CV and a link to your portfolio. Tell us about a time you applied an existing brand system to something new, and one way you've used, or would like to use, AI in your design work.

Before the final interview, we'll ask you to complete a short practical task based on our design principles and a real brief.

• Applications close on Monday 23 November.