Digital Design Director

Location: Cape Town (Hybrid)

Type: Full-time

About Simplr

Simplr is a Cape Town-based brand and digital design agency partnering with ambitious organisations around the world. We design brands, websites and digital products that solve real business problems through clarity, strategy and exceptional craft.

We’re looking for a Digital Design Director to lead our digital design capability. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who combines exceptional design craft with strategic thinking, modern AI-assisted workflows, and the ability to inspire both clients and designers.

While the role is heavily focused on premium website design, you’ll also oversee the design of digital products, portals, dashboards, applications and enterprise platforms.

What you’ll do

• Lead the creative direction for all digital design projects.
• Drive UX strategy and user-centred thinking across websites and digital products.
• Design high-end digital interfaces when required.
• Mentor and develop the UI/UX design team.
• Set quality standards and champion design excellence.
• Lead discovery workshops and client presentations.
• Shape information architecture, user journeys and interaction models.
• Build and evolve design systems.
• Collaborate closely with developers to ensure pixel-perfect implementation.
• Continuously improve our AI-enabled design workflows and help the team adopt new tools effectively.
• Help shape Simplr’s digital offering and contribute to new business opportunities.

What we’re looking for

• 8+ years in digital design, UI/UX or product design.
• Previous experience leading digital projects and mentoring designers.
• Outstanding portfolio of websites and digital products.
• Exceptional Figma skills.
• Strong understanding of UX, accessibility and responsive design.
• Experience presenting to senior stakeholders.
• Commercial thinking and strategic problem-solving.
• Excellent typography, layout and visual design skills.
• Comfortable balancing hands-on design with leadership responsibilities.
• Confident using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Lovable, Cursor, v0 or similar to improve research, ideation, UX exploration and production workflows while maintaining a high standard of design thinking.

Bonus points

• SaaS or enterprise platform experience.
• Motion and interaction design.
• Experience building design systems at scale.
• Basic front-end knowledge (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).

You’ll thrive here if you

• Raise the quality of everyone around you.
• Care deeply about craft.
• Simplify complexity.
• Embrace technology without sacrificing creative thinking.
• Want to build one of South Africa’s strongest digital design teams.