Location
London, UK (Hybrid working with four days in the studio and one day remote per week)

Hours
Full Time, Permanent

Salary
£45,000–£55,000 per annum, depending on experience

About the Role
Studio DRAMA is an independent brand and type design studio based in London, working with ambitious brands and creative partners worldwide to create distinctive identities and custom typefaces. Typography is at the heart of much of what we do, spanning brand design, type design, and technology.

As Lead Type Designer, you will lead the creative development of custom typefaces for some of the world’s most recognisable brands. This is primarily a design role requiring exceptional drawing skills, strong typographic instincts, and the ability to take ideas from early sketches through to distinctive, coherent, and beautifully crafted type families.

You will work across projects from early creative exploration to final delivery, collaborating closely with Creative Directors, designers, engineers, clients, and external creative partners. You will also play a key role in raising the standard of type design across the studio by mentoring other designers and helping to improve how we approach, present, and deliver our work.

Key Responsibilities:
- Lead the design and development of major custom typeface projects.
- Develop distinctive typographic concepts that respond intelligently to brands and their visual identities.
- Draw and refine letterforms to an exceptional standard.
- Develop coherent type systems across weights, widths, styles, and families.
- Take projects from initial sketches through to final type families.
- Explore expressive and experimental typography where appropriate.
- Design with real-world applications in mind, from large-scale brand communications to digital products and interfaces.
- Contribute to the development of Studio DRAMA’s retail typeface library.
- Take creative ownership of custom type projects and present work directly to clients and partners.
- Collaborate with project managers to keep projects ambitious, focused, and on schedule.
- Work closely with font engineers to prepare typefaces for production and maintain high craft standards.
- Mentor junior and midweight designers, lead critiques, and foster a collaborative studio culture.
- Stay curious about emerging ideas in type design, including variable fonts, motion, and new creative tools.
- Initiate and contribute to internal typographic experiments and help turn experimentation into ideas influencing future work.

Working at Studio DRAMA
This role offers the opportunity to work with major global brands and help shape a growing independent studio and type practice. Benefits include a performance-related bonus, foundry profit share scheme, pension, healthcare, exercise benefits, paid holiday, hybrid working, and regular studio socials and events.

If you are excited by ambitious type design and want to play a meaningful role in the future of Studio DRAMA, we would love to hear from you.

Experience
- Significant professional experience designing typefaces.
- An exceptional portfolio demonstrating creativity, originality, and craft.
- Excellent letter-drawing skills and a deep understanding of typography.
- Experience designing substantial type families across multiple weights and styles.
- Advanced knowledge of Glyphs and contemporary type design workflows.
- Experience with interpolation and variable fonts.
- Strong understanding of font production and OpenType.
- Experience working on custom or brand typefaces.
- Confidence presenting work and communicating directly with clients.
- Ability to lead projects and provide clear creative direction.
- Experience designing additional scripts or working with multi-script collaborators is a bonus.

About You
You are deeply invested in the craft of type design and equally interested in ideas. You can obsess over the shape of a curve and also understand its impact on an entire type system or brand. You are comfortable taking ownership, sharing your point of view, and helping other designers produce their best work. Ambitious about what type design can be, you are excited by the opportunity to help build a growing type practice. Most importantly, you love drawing type.

Qualifications
While specific qualifications are not detailed, a strong portfolio and professional experience in type design are essential. A passion for typography and a commitment to craft and innovation are key.