Design Production Manager

Sourcebooks•Naperville, IL

12d•$78,000 - $88,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Design Production Manager will play a pivotal role in overseeing the full cover production process, ensuring flawless execution, efficiency, and high design standards. This role leads the production design function within the Adult & YA cover design department, managing a team of full cover production designers and the Art Buyer. You will bring strong in-house prepress leadership while leading and elevating the production design team, strengthening workflow discipline, and proactively building cross-functional alignment. This role sits at the intersection of creative execution and operational rigor, serving as the design team’s operational lead in partnering with our manufacturing and production teams. If you can translate creative intent into production reality and are comfortable advocating for clarity, identifying breakdowns, and driving continuous improvement through agility, partnership, and influence, we hope to hear from you. The ideal candidate brings both strong prepress fluency and creative instincts. A design or production background is essential, as this leader must understand not only how files are built, but why creative decisions are made and how to protect both brand integrity and production feasibility. This position requires a growth mindset, problem-solving agility, and strong collaboration skills to identify and correct quality issues efficiently. This is an exempt, salaried position with a range of $78,000-$88,000. We determine starting pay based on a thorough evaluation of job-related factors, including geographic location, market conditions, relevant experience, training, and education. This process ensures a fair and competitive salary that aligns with both the company and the candidate’s qualifications.   This position is hybrid in our Naperville location, with a minimum of 2 days per week in office.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in book design or production with a strong understanding of brand consistency, consumer engagement, and market trends.
Prior experience managing designers or leading a production-focused design team.
Strong prepress and print production expertise, including mechanical setup, color management, specialty finishes, and manufacturing specifications.
Exceptional project management, problem-solving, and organizational skills with experience improving workflows and implementing structured processes.
High-level communication and organizational skills with an ability to partner with and influence cross-functional partners without direct authority.
Demonstrated creative sensibility with expertise in Adobe Creative Suite in a Mac-based environment.
A growth mindset, always learning and staying ahead of design and printing innovations.
Feel motivated by an energetic environment that values initiative, growth, and thoughtful collaboration.

Responsibilities

Lead and elevate an internal production design team, fostering a culture of growth while reinforcing both high creative standards and flawless technical precision in production execution.
Take ownership of cover production execution and serve as an operational partner to manufacturing in ensuring files are delivered error-free, on time and optimized for printing.
Be deeply collaborative, translating creative intent into production reality by clearly articulating tradeoffs around finishes, stock, coatings, and materials and helping teams make informed decisions early instead of reactively, partnering with manufacturing to communicate design and production requirements to printer partners as needed.
Lean into data to track efficiency, error rates and cost-effectiveness, driving workflow improvements and growing internal prepress capabilities to reduce reliance on printer teams, and control costs without sacrificing quality.
Manage art licensing and contract management, partnering closely with the Art Buyer to align asset sourcing with production timelines.
Stay curious and engaged, keeping up with advancements in prepress and printing technologies, design trends, and book production.
Be agile, maintaining structured workflows and overseeing quality control measures while allowing for shifting priorities and schedules.
Embrace an entrepreneurial mindset while playing a critical role in improving upstream processes, building alignment across teams, and proposing scalable solutions to recurring structural gaps.