Senior designer

Role specification – Senior designer

With the potential of becoming a business partner

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR

This isn’t just a job

We’re not looking for just an ‘employee’. This role is for a committed colleague — and, ideally, further down the road, a business partner. But from the outset, we do expect you to bring personal investment and share the belief that together we can create deeper connections and positive change through identity, culture and communications.

Collaboration is hugely critical for us. We’re looking for someone with whom we can build on what we feel is something special, not just in our work but also in our team culture. So, ethos must be as important to you as experience and skill.

What being part of Neo means

A founding B Corp, Neo was one of the first creative agencies to work exclusively with organisations with a social or environmental purpose. Twenty years on and we’re committed more than ever to supporting the pioneers making our world a better place.

What unites us more than anything is our belief that brand and communications have the power to bring people together to achieve great things. We believe that an equal, caring and conscious world can exist if we do things differently, if we unite our efforts to make change happen.

That change must start with ourselves. We work hard to nurture an open, inclusive and egalitarian culture. We’re a diverse bunch in many ways, we consider ourselves to be incredibly supportive and we don’t stand for discrimination of any kind. Inspired by the Teal movement, we’re leaning toward a self-organised structure, and we work hard on sharing decision-making and nurturing creative development.

We need someone who’s...

• Open, curious, creative, courageous
• A truly collaborative team-player
• A strong conceptual and creative thinker
• An enquiring, active and intent listener
• A confident / willing facilitator and speaker
• An excellent organiser
• Supportive, positive and resilient
• Lives ideally in or around the Brighton area but we’re happy to consider applications from further afield.

Not too much to ask, eh?! While some of the above are absolute musts, others might be areas for development. We’re not deluded into thinking any of us are perfect and we actively encourage one another to bring our whole selves to work. So, we’d expect whoever takes up this role to be conscious of and comfortable sharing their pitfalls as well as strengths. Someone who’s willing to work on themselves as we try to. And someone who can have a good laugh with us!

THE ROLE

Hours

• First six months: 3-4 days per week to be agreed
• On a freelance or employment contract basis
• After six months, we’d hope you could join us for 4-5 days per week as a permanent employee.

Salary & benefits

• £32k-£37k per annum, pro-rata (or freelance equivalent rate), depending on experience and skills
• Company pension and sickness payment scheme
• Professional and personal development opportunities
• Flexible working and good work-life balance.

Overall, as a designer, you’ll:

• Bring a high level of conceptual creative thinking to support and complement our rigorous strategic approach
• Work across a range of projects spanning identity culture, campaigns and communications
• Help to creatively direct and lead some of those projects, working collaboratively with the team to produce the best possible outputs and outcomes.
• Work with our client partners to articulate and make the most of their visual identity and storytelling, helping to bring to life the principles that support their ambitions and the growth of their communities and audiences
• Build open, trusting and respectful relationships with our client partners
• Contribute to developing our ways of working, building our business and raising our profile

And you'll do this by:

• Nurturing a deep understanding of our creative process
• Embracing our purpose to find what matters and make it matter more to help realise radical human change
• Committing to being creative and courageous in your work and in our social and environmental aims, and to being a collective and conscious thinker and doer
• Understanding how our holistic approach to identity (connecting it more integrally with the strategy and culture of the organisation) can develop within the parameters of the project
• Helping to strengthen identity work through understanding its intersection with organisational culture
• Seeing the purpose and possibilities within each project — to develop and expand the work, and to increase its impact.

Designer responsibilities

You'll be working collaboratively to...

• Really understand the needs of our client partners, their audiences and the potential of projects to meet these needs
• Help to shape and respond to briefs with conceptual and constructive thinking
• Lead on design projects in a wide range of digital and print contexts
• Undertake relevant research as part of our evidence-based approach, to bring depth and perspective to creative propositions
• Help us to facilitate creative workshops
• Co-create design propositions for identity, campaign and communications projects
• Present creative recommendations internally and to client partners and seek constructive feedback
• Assist in developing film and photographic briefs, commissioning filmmakers and photographers and directing shoots
• Work collaboratively with our strategists, writers, animators, filmmakers, etc, to maintain the integrity, quality and direction of ideas into the best possible outcomes
• Support in overseeing the production of content to exceptionally high standards
• Develop excellent knowledge of the areas in which we work, keeping abreast of pertinent design-related issues and of our own industry trends.

Leadership and development responsibilities:

• Share in our purpose and commitments, support in shaping and achieving our strategic goals
• Share in our B Corp commitments, and bring your own to the table, to help us maintain and improve our certification and achieve our social and environmental aims
• Contribute to the development of our own creative ways of working
• Commit to self- and peer-to-peer development, through constant learning, sharing and coaching
• Encourage and invite collaboration at all levels
• Support our response to business opportunities, contributing to our own identity, conversations and content
• Participate in events to support our purpose and positioning — eg, building relationships, speaking or facilitating workshops
• Help identify relevant new project opportunities and, at times, lead our creative response to them
• Develop and nurture important relationships with client partners, collaborators and advocates
• Help to organise projects, timings and budgets efficiently.

Where we work

Originally based in Brighton, the team is now dispersed across the UK — some of us are still in Brighton, while others are in Shrewsbury and Wales. That means we collaborate online using tools such as Zoom, Slack and Miro. But we also work in person wherever possible, be it as part of projects, events or meetings with client partners. And while we’ve become quite proficient at remote working, we value our time together and so we make an effort to meet up as much as possible.

Timings
Deadline for applications: Wednesday 8 June 2022.

How to apply
Send a covering letter, CV/profile and sample of your work to Kelly and Nick at hello@weareneo.com.