Senior Designer

At AKQA, we believe in the imaginative application of art and science to create a better future. With an entrepreneurial and collaborative approach, we design adaptive ideas, services and experiences that capture the imagination, delivering impressive returns for our clients.

Designers at AKQA apply systems thinking and craft to create brands, products, and experiences that people genuinely want to use, wear, share, and come back to. In a multidisciplinary environment, they translate insight into form, shaping identities, interfaces, and design languages that feel both culturally alive and beautifully precise.

As a Senior Designer in MENA, you'll play an essential role in shaping the design vision and craft of work across brand, digital, product, experience and campaign. You'll help define and build design systems, produce exceptional work, identities and prototypes, and collaborate closely with creative, strategy, tech, delivery and production to create transformative work for regional and global clients.

At AKQA you will have access to world-renowned thought leadership from influential authors, athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. You will work in an environment which fosters a meritocratic culture and encourages ownership, and you will be surrounded by some of the brightest minds in their fields.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Lead with maker energy. Drive design, craft, and execution with pace and pride, raising the bar on every visual, system, and experience, and pushing visuals to be bolder, clearer, and more culturally relevant.
• Think in systems, not assets. Build identities and design languages that scale across channels and evolve over time. Create rules and rythms, not just one-off screens.
• Craft with obsession. Sweat the details: spacing, alignment, type, transitions, iconography, accessibility, responsiveness. Your work should feel authored, intentional and world-class.
• Design beyond the screen. Bring the same design intelligence to environments, packaging, content ecosystems, installations and tech-enabled experiences. Understand how a brand behaves in the real world.
• Make work that travels. Create a design with PR potential: iconic, ownable, culturally legible. Understand what will land locally in MENA and what will travel globally.
• Own the process end-to-end. From early explorations and mood boards to design development, artworking, production files and QA, you shepherd quality through every phase.
• Collaborate like a modern designer. Work fluidly with writers, strategists, creative directors, technologists, makers, AI tools and the broader AKQA network. Invite critique and use friction to sharpen outcomes.
• Present with clarity and taste. Tell the design story: the rationale, the system, the choices and the craft, guiding clients through what matters and why it works.
• Guard the standard. Be accountable for every deliverable. Ensure every layout, screen, prototype, deck page and asset meets AKQA's global level and reflects the studio's ambition.

QUALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS

• A compelling portfolio demonstrating design craft and systems thinking across brand, digital, product, campaign and/or experience work.
• Strong ability to develop visual identities, design systems
• Confident in typography, composition, hierarchy and grid systems; high attention to detail.
• Proven success working in collaborative, multi-functional teams.
• Strong design presentation skills (visual and written).
• Culturally literate with a breadth of reference points, and the ability to translate culture into design decisions (not just mood boards).
• Hungry to push boundaries and make work that is distinctive, modern and craft-led.
• Passionate about design best practices and continuously improving your craft.
• Experience in presenting to clients and supporting senior leads is advantageous.
• Degree in Design, Visual Communication, Interaction Design, Visual Studies or related field preferred.
• Extensive experience with industry-standard tools (e.g. Figma, Adobe Creative Suite...).
• Appreciation for production realities: print, digital delivery, responsive behaviour and quality assurance.
• Supplementary skills appreciated: motion design, photography, illustration, 3D, generative/AI workflows, digital installations, creative coding.