In-House Designer

The role

This is no typical ‘in-house designer’ role.

Child.org are looking for a talented designer who – with support from our Comms Manager – can take visual ownership of all our programming, fundraising, product and service marketing and communications.

The opportunity

A truly unique opportunity for a designer keen to advance their career – taking full ownership of exciting brands, services and communications – working for a cause that pushes the boundaries of a typical charity structure and fundraising output.

The job

Child.org has its own brand – its look and feel (colour palette, logomarks, typeface, photography style…etc.) and way we talk (strapline, tone, what we say and don’t say… etc.). We use this in our own communications, on our website, and to talk about our programming in Africa (via an annual report to our regular donors for example). We’re straight-talking, we do what works. 

We need you to ensure we keep it up, and progress our design templates.We then have our fundraising campaigns and appeals. You can see our biggest and most recent appeal #TeamMum at child.org/team-mum. Here, we hired an illustrator to create a small set of brand assets (pattern/texture/mum illustrations) and a custom typeface. We then expanded this out into a full campaign including print, digital, merchandise, and event assets. 

Our next appeal will have you at the helm.Another type of fundraising we promote, is via products or events. Ride Africa is a tough cycle challenge that Child.org founded and built into a successful, respected event brand. Each year we sign-up 50-150 regular folk, who are keen to challenge themselves for a good cause – and take them on a trip of a lifetime. Child.org built the Ride Africa brand from scratch. 

You will continue to push it forward – in charge of the artwork (and creative direction) of medals, T-Shirts, Cycle Jerseys, Dry bags, Route plans, website and email updates, start/finish banners… and all those future ideas of yours.Finally, Child.org also has an enterprise arm – where we hatch new business ideas, whose income directly supports the charity. Spectacular Pub Quizzes and Remarkable Tours are great examples of this – where with the latter for example, we partner with the likes of Airbnb, and become a licensee of Horrible Histories to bring ‘gruesome’ walking tours to London.

This is where it gets even more exciting. As you will be the main visual support, and creator of brands and assets for all our current and future Enterprise products and services. (With some outside-hired help where you need it of course).We told you it wasn’t a typical ‘in-house designer’ role.

About you

You love branding. You breathe design, and always think with digital in mind. You care about charity, and progression.

You crave responsibility and ownership of projects, and design output. You love the idea of being the only designer within the organisation. 

You like designing for a variety of things, rather than working on only one product or brand. You’re open to new tools and processes that may make collaborating with the team easier.

You are skilled in, and are comfortable with Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. You may know Adobe XD (or Sketch), and are used to collaborative work tools such as Google Drive, Dropbox and Slack.

You have a passion for getting better with words, copywriting and communications.

You understand the power of great design.

You'll be really good at

• Being a brand ambassador. Ensuring each of our products and services remain respectively on-brand.
• Quality Assurance. You’ll want to ensure that every communication – whether it be an Instagram story, tote bag swag, or an all encompassing event set-up – is top notch in terms of design and proofing.
• Ideas. You’ll love working with our Comms Manager to come up with campaign, brand, or event ideas.
• Print design. You’ll know all about CMYK, Bleed, and image resolution. You’ll be confident in laying out a brochure, business card, or roller banner, and have your own preferences about which stock to use.
• Digital design. You’ll know the difference between bitmap and vector, and when to use each. You’ll feel confident in creating social media assets, fliers, and website imagery.
• Web and UI design. You may or may not be a pro, but you’ll at least be comfortable designing and editing within Squarespace, and not be afraid of creating a new website design from scratch.
• Creating (and maintaining) brand assets. Many of our products and services already have a brand language in place – you’ll know how to respect it, upkeep it, and even improve on it. 
• Photo editing. We get so many potentially great images from donors, fundraisers, partners etc. but the majority just need those shadows brought up, exposure or colour balance tweaked. Even if you just get to grips with the ‘Auto’ button in Adobe Lightroom… you’ll keep us all on track with our creative output.
• Working as part of a team. Although you will be responsible for how all comms look and feel, you’ll respect your teams opinions and support them in their own product’s vision.

Things we all do

• Attend events as required
• Develop an in-depth understanding of our work 
• Do any other reasonable things your manager needs you to do
• Engage with the team, and directly with our supporters

Applying for the role

Required experience

You must have previous experience of working within an agency, or organisation. (With you being the only designer on board, we cannot offer in-house design training). 

You must be able to show us a portfolio of your work, that proves your understanding of good, considered design. (We can only hope that your appreciation of white-space, is something that the entire team can learn from). 

You must be able to work with, and manipulate pre-existing work across Illustrator and InDesign – and preferably be comfortable enough with Photoshop and Lightroom.

Application guidance

We’re keen to find the right designer for our organisation. Tell us why you’re a good fit, and impress us with your attention to detail and broad understanding of communications. 

We know that we’re asking for a lot – so don’t be scared to tell us what you’re NOT so comfortable or skilled in too. We will be organising a handover from our previous Head of Creative, Naomi, and can offer some monthly support from her in the short-term.

This is a big, exciting role. An opportunity to dive right into some wonderful, rewarding work. On a 4-day week to boot. 

Please pop an introductory email, along with your portfolio to the link below