Job Description

Cape Town
Full-time

Designer, Cape Town

Rival is looking for a Midweight Designer to join our media & marketing team

As a Designer, you will play an exciting role in shaping strategically-informed, stand-out creative, working across our own Rival brand and helping us launch new media properties for our growing publication side of the business. You'll be part of Rival's Media & Marketing team - sitting in between one of the fastest growing marketing consultancies globally, and a burgeoning media publication team, all focussed on the future of challenger brands and unlocking the challenger playbook.

What You'll Do

Our designers are the thinkers and makers who bring ideas to life.


You will spend most of your time creating, owning and delivering outstanding design work for the Rival brand and new media properties we put out. You will be in charge of rolling out all of our design assets for everything the consultancy puts out including decks, thought leadership, landing pages, infographics, social assets. You will collaborate with the design team, our design directors, strategists, other members of the team to deliver work that is both strategic and creatively original. Help evolve our current brand guidelines and outputs. On the media side, you'll be central to new design identities and rolling out new ideas for our various media properties such as our podcast, Scratch and our bigger research pieces like The Future of the CMO documentary and The Rival 50 challenger brand index. You will present your ideas and concepts confidently, bringing people on the journey. You will take ownership of your work, iterating on feedback to push your design craft further. You will play a part in shaping Rival's own brand and Rival media as a publication

Why Rival, Why Now

A consultancy built differently.

We're four years in, growing fast, and proving there's a premium alternative to the bloated incumbents.

Global perspective.

Work with ambitious clients across North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Small team, big impact.

With boutique sizing, every project is high visibility and high impact--no hiding in the back row.

Direct influence.

Work alongside Rival's founders, shaping the consultancy's future as much as our clients'.

Who Thrives Here

We don't hire CVs, we hire people who think and act like challengers.

You have significant professional experience (at least 5+ years) working in design studios or other agencies. You're culturally aware, with a keen eye on branding and design trends. You have a strong grasp of typography, colour, composition, illustration, iconography, and art direction You can create compelling 2D animations for a variety of projects, including marketing videos, promotional content, and product explainers. Motion Graphics is a nice to have if you can design and animate motion graphics elements for use in videos and digital media. You're a fast worker - we're a startup so you need to be able to roll with the changes and be able to deliver quickly. You're fluent in Figma, Adobe CC and Google Workspace (slides, docs etc is a must) You're hyper organised and can manage multiple different projects. You're confident in generating ideas and articulating them visually and verbally. You understand UI/UX principles and digital design practices. You're highly creative, detail-oriented, and passionate about design craft. You're collaborative, curious, proactive, adaptable, and eager to learn.

Extra points if...

You bring additional skills like motion/animation or web development (though not essential). You love branding with a concept behind it and have a strong point of view on what makes brands stand out.

Premium Compensation, Real Upside


We believe in rewarding excellence with

premium upside, not average paychecks.

Base Salary:

Competitive within consultancy/agency benchmarks.

Profit Share:

Twice-yearly distributions (eligibility after 90 days), tied to performance.

Employee Liquidity Plan ("shadow stock"):

Share in Rival's long-term success--without the friction of traditional options (eligibility after 1 year)

Benefits Designed for Impact

20-days vacation days for South African employees + public holidays Profit Share and Rival Employee Liquidity Plan Office-first culture, with grown-up flexibility All the tech + tools to do your best work, wherever you are Discovery Health Medical Aid contribution + Rival will contribute up to R3750 per month
Retirement Annuity + Rival will contribute a maximum of 3% of the employee's Cost to Company (CTC) to the RA fund.
+ The employee must at a minimum match the company's contribution of 3%.
Parental/Family/Maternity/Adoption Leave Quarterly "Team Weeks" for collaboration, development, and global exposure All-expenses-paid

Rival Retreats

in amazing locations Year-round Rival "surprise & delight" experiences

About Rival

Rival is a

marketing consultancy built for challengers.

Incumbent best practices deliver average results--we don't do average. We challenger brand thinking to help CMOs achieve outsized impact with smarter, leaner, bolder marketing strategies.

Our Hiring Philosophy

We're building a consultancy that's both

premium and progressive

--a home for the world's best marketing talent and a model for diversity in our industry.


Our commitments:

Clarity and fairness in every process Respect for candidates' time (including paid tasks) Speed and transparency in communication Feedback opportunities throughout You'll speak to a range of people in different roles, to give you a flavour of what it's like here

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We know diverse perspectives drive better strategies. Rival is committed to building a consultancy where individuality fuels innovation. Authenticity isn't an initiative--it's a requirement.