(Junior) Creative Director – Design & Brand (m/w/d)

Role Summary

The consulting industry in Germany looks the same everywhere. Same imagery, same stock photos, same shades of blue, same language. Brand is practically unoccupied in this market.

Vogel is one of the most successful medium-sized consulting companies in Germany - several thousand medium-sized companies entrust us with their tax, commercial and strategic issues. Established clients, long experience, strong basis for growth. From this we are building the consulting firm for German medium-sized businesses, and we are building it quickly. This market is not won by who writes the better technical essay, but by who has a long-term presence as a brand and leads the market - among entrepreneurs as well as among the people we want to win over. This is exactly the brand we are building: iconic, distinctive, and it doesn't yet exist in this industry. Design is therefore not a department at the end of the chain: what we build is thought of from a design perspective.

You are a graphic designer with exceptional visual flair and a portfolio that speaks for itself. You come from an agency, your own studio or a brand with a strong visual system. You're changing because you're only ever responsible for a sub-area - a campaign, a relaunch, a route in the system - and are never allowed to be responsible for and manage the brand as a whole, including the experience behind it. That's exactly what you want: full visual responsibility, with a client who doesn't take away your judgment.

The role is deliberately open at the bottom. If you've just come from a strong design degree or training and your portfolio shows the visual judgment and system depth that this role needs, you've come to the right place - you'll start at the lower end of the range, work on parts of the system first and grow into full responsibility. The portfolio decides, not the year of graduation. At Vogel you will find both: structures that support and a setup that moves forward every day. No corporate corset. There is no promise of development without a foundation.

You are responsible for the entire visual system of Vogel and the other brands that are created alongside it - print, digital, spatial, moving image, experience. You implement it yourself and bring in partners where capacity or specialization requires it. You report directly to management. The role is based in Munich, on site. After 24 to 36 months, the natural development leads to professional management of the design and brand department.

What you delivered after 6 months

• You have expanded the visual system - typography, color, imagery and components are noticeably further developed, not just inventoried.
• You have revised vogel-beratung.com http://vogel-beratung.com, the new pages are live.
• You are the central contact person for all design topics in the company - inquiries come to you instead of ending up with external parties.
• You deliver constant output of assets across all channels without topics being left behind.
• The brand begins to bear your signature.

What you delivered after 12 months

• The design system in Figma is set up so that content, growth and recruiting topics can be produced cleanly without you.
• The daily assets from everyday consulting work - presentations, slides, client documents - are created automatically using AI based on your design system. The fact that this works depends on clean documentation and a reliable technical setup: both are up to you.
• The design system and assets of all Vogel Group sub-brands are developed and applied - each brand has its own visual foundation that clearly comes from the same logic.
• Your partner setup is in place: selected agencies and creative partners, clear briefing standards, quality assessment from you.
• Motion design runs as a separate production line under your control.

What you delivered after 24 months

• Vogel is visually distinctive — relatable in the market without the need for a logo.
• You visually set up a new brand in weeks, not quarters - the system supports this without you having to build every asset yourself.
• You have hired at least one junior designer, trained them and brought them to a level where they are responsible for their own routes.

Where the position is developing

The next step is the professional management of design and brand across all brands (IC career) - this requires a visual system that can support you without you, not just additional professional years. If you help build the team and want to lead it, the management career also opens up. We don't know the automaticity of "more experience equals higher level".

Responsibilities

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Visual system and brand management

1. You are responsible for Vogel's design system — typography, color, imagery, layout principles, components — and develop it further instead of just managing it.
2. You translate the system into content: social, publications, white papers, presentations, recruiting material. The system is only ready when others in the company can work with it without asking you.
3. You set up the visual systems of the other brands that are created at Vogel.
4. Your benchmark: Anyone who sees three of our touchpoints next to each other will recognize them as a bird without a logo.

Design across all media

1. Print: Publications, business stationery, client communication, campaign motifs - from the first sketch to print approval in your hand.
2. Web design: You design vogel-beratung.com http://vogel-beratung.com and the associated pages in direct communication with our web developer. In addition, you are responsible for web design for all Vogel Group locations and companies.
3. Event design and spatial design: locations, stages, own event formats, trade fair appearances. You design how Vogel feels when you stand in the room.
4. Experience Design: You think about the path of clients and applicants as a designed sequence, not as a collection of individual assets.

Creative control, partners and young talent

1. You manage agencies, creative partners, photographers and freelancers — briefing, selection, quality assessment, approval. Capacity is supplied, the handwriting remains yours.
2. You control motion design from conception to acceptance and ensure that moving images come from the same system as everything else.
3. You provide technical guidance to our design interns and young professionals, give feedback on the craft and build your own team in the future.
4. You work in an environment that is hierarchical in decision-making, flat in communication and autonomous in execution. Achievement is celebrated, not hidden - anyone who wants to get ahead because they are good will find the space to do so here, without political camouflage and without consensus theatre.

WHAT YOU WON'T FIND WITH US

1. No job in which you hand over designs to agencies and review reports. You produce yourself. Partners come in where there is a lack of capacity or specialization - not in place of your signature.
2. No glossy agency workflow. We iterate in short cycles, make decisions on the screen and work on the details ourselves. Anyone who needs lead time, coordination cascades and presentation rituals works against the clock here.
3. No greenfield design in an empty space. Vogel has an existing image, ongoing client communications and a website that is productive. What you build has to work alongside ongoing operations.
4. No marketing corset in which you wait for promotions. Growth here comes from contributions, not from years of work - and not from how many people report to you.
5. No exit to a 40-hour week and no remote-first setup. The intensity remains high, directed differently and with significantly more ownership. This role needs a presence in Munich - design is created here in the space with others.

FAQ

1. WHAT IS BIRD — AND WHERE DO YOU WORK?

Vogel is one of Germany's leading medium-sized business consultancies - a family business since 1959, based in Aalen - and is building the leading consulting platform for medium-sized businesses. We are growing at several locations: in Aalen/East Württemberg as an established headquarters and in Munich as a new hub. In both, we look across functions — from tax advice to consulting to the strategic teams that build the platform.

1. HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE SALARY BANDS?

Deliberately wide - and identified at every point. We differentiate based on track record and market value, not on degree: scarce, highly sought-after profiles at the top end, less scarce ones at the bottom. We calibrate exclusively to the market - two people with similar experience can earn different things with us.

1. HOW MUCH — AND HOW — DOES VOGEL WORK?

It's measured by what you move, not by hours. But it's also honest: If you're looking for 9-to-5, we're not the first place to go. We are looking for people who work intensively on their own initiative because the tasks are worth it. How you distribute your time is largely up to you. What we share: We work together face-to-face - culture, sparring and the best ideas arise in daily proximity. We are not a remote company and do not have major home office policies; Individual remote days are no problem.

1. HOW DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS?

Slim, fast, transparent — and graded according to profile. For entry-level roles (internship, work study, career entry), two interviews and a short work sample are usually sufficient; experienced roles are a little more detailed. For selected senior roles, we are looking into incorporating a joint working day in the future so that both sides get to know each other better. The following always applies: scheduled deadlines, quick decisions, substantial feedback - regardless of the outcome.

1. HOW DOES VARIABLE PAY WORK?

Linked to performance on a quarterly basis and assessed qualitatively. The scale increases with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. Expected value with good performance - you meet the requirements, set your own accents, pass the keeper test - is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is on a holistic assessment by your manager: ownership, quality, learning curve, collaboration, impact.

1. HOW DO I DEVELOP MYSELF - WHAT CAREER PATHS ARE THERE?

• Two active paths: Mastery (technical depth, expert career) and Pioneer (leadership, management). You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3.
• Starting a career is not a special path, but rather the early part of the same route - from working student or intern to associate, for the best ones without having to reapply.

1. TEAM, CULTURE, HOLIDAY?

A shared lunch is an open daily option - not an obligation; If you like, you can join us; anyone can eat at any time. Plus dinners, social events and offsites on a regular basis - not as a mandatory program, but because a good team also shares time outside of work. Benefits: thoughtful and substantial, not symbolic. Vacation: 28 days.

1. I KNOW SOMEONE - IS THERE A REFERRAL BONUS?

• Yes — EUR 2,500 for each successfully filled position (no internships). A short context is enough: who you are thinking about, for what role, why. Doesn't have to fit perfectly, but has to be substantial.
• Salary: €61,200 – €114,750 • Fixed: €48k – €90k · Bonus: €13.2k – €24.75k · EV: €56.16k – €105.3k

Requirements

THIS IS WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU

Experience & track record

• You have a portfolio of the highest level — graphic design, typography, branding systems, visual storytelling. The portfolio decides, not the CV.
• You produced in a professional setup: agency with a design or branding focus, your own studio, or in-house at a brand with a strong visual system. For us, years of work are an indication, not a criterion - we decide on work and ability to implement.
• You have studied communication design, graphic design, visual communication or something similar - or you have taught yourself the craft and can prove it with work that replaces your degree.
• Profiles that do not fit into the above grid, but have visual judgment and depth of implementation, are expressly invited - we judge on the contribution, not on the label. Specifically: Designers from a small studio without big names whose work is better than what big agencies deliver; Art director from a field far away from B2B — fashion, culture, gastronomy, music — with systemic thinking; Architect or scenographer with a strong sense of typography and space; Self-taught with his own magazine, label or project that visually contributes. The range shown is not a scope for negotiation, but a profile scale: the lower end represents entry directly after studying or training with a convincing portfolio, the upper end represents depth of design in the focus, a system that works without you, and a recognizable methodological contribution - not leadership range. Anyone who brings a different background starts at a different market price and converges to the role level after twelve months of proven performance - the logic behind this is in our compensation principles https://www.vogel-beratung.com/culture/verg%C3%BCtungsgrunds%C3%A4tze.

Skills & way of working

• You are proficient in production-level Adobe Creative Cloud — InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop — and Figma as a system tool.
• You can hand over web design in such a way that it is implementable. A basic understanding of HTML and CSS helps, but is not a requirement.
• You have motion basics — enough to brief, control and evaluate results. More is welcome.
• You work with AI as a natural tool — image generation, variant exploration, retouching, quickly going through layout directions. You think of a design system in such a way that an AI can reliably produce from it.

Repetitive tasks are an incentive for you to automate, not a fate.

• You produce in short cycles and show unfinished things early on. You don’t need long coordination loops or presentation choreography.

Mindset & personality

• You have taste and can recognize when something is good without anyone giving you criteria - and you can still justify your decision instead of hiding behind taste.
• You hold a creative position when you are convinced and drop it when the counterargument is better.
• You want to work with people who understand design and don't need to be convinced that it counts. The feedback rounds here are about the matter, not about taste politics.
• You aspire to set the highest standard in everything you deliver — not because someone controls it, but because mediocrity bothers you personally.