Digital Designer, Vox Media
Lifestyle, Temporary Contract
$70-73k
Independent media company
Be an early applicant
Independent media company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$70-73k
1001+ employees
Company mission
To shape the future of the media industry.
Role
Who you are
- We’re looking for someone who is innovative, tenacious, grounded, and excited by the idea of creating thoughtful and intriguing visuals that complement our storytelling across mediums
- The right candidate is always looking for ways to further their technical design skills, is adept at time-managing their own project load, and is laser-focused on details, but also is eager to approach design challenges from a variety of disciplines
- We’re specifically eager to bring on a designer well-versed in Ceros or other similar platforms, who can build digital experiences that include photography, graphics, and animation
- Technical Skillsets: You have at least 1 year’s experience out of school as a professional graphic designer, and the work to speak for it
- You are fluent in Adobe Creative Suite; knowledge of additional design software (Ceros, Sketch, Figma, Canva, etc.); have experience designing in ESPs (e.g. SailThru, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, etc.); and have a working knowledge of administrative/CMS software (Google Suite, Dropbox, Airtable, Monday.com, Trello, etc.)
- Efficiency: You are able to efficiently produce a substantial output of content without sacrificing design integrity or visual brand cohesivity which involves a demonstrated ability to autonomously project and time manage your work
- Flexibility: You’re able to work within succinct timelines, and respond to the ever-changing landscape that is media reporting, including quickly executing timely edits on iterative design schemes
- Fluency Around Social Trends: You have a detail-oriented, constantly-evolving “finger on the pulse” of the latest visual trends across popular social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, meaning you are consuming content constantly and communicating the commonalities you’re seeing with your team in an effort to sharpen and better the content we create together
- Design Eye: You have a strong understanding of visual design principles, typography, color theory, and layout as they pertain specifically and responsively to different social platforms
- Positive, Collaborative Attitude: You’re able to analyze the tasks in front of you and meet design challenges with demonstrated critical thinking, awareness of various perspectives and attention to optimizing return and engagement; you're eager to learn and expand your own skill set through the work you create
- Animation Skillset: Prior experience building animations and working with video times to integrate animated design is a major plus
- Coding Skillset: Knowledge of HTML, CSS, SCSS and prior, if minimal, experience coding web designs is a plus
- Investment in Reporting: Curiosity towards and investment in food journalism are a major plus
- Will require everyone who works from one of our offices to be fully-vaccinated against COVID-19. Employees with approved religious or medical exemptions may be subject to additional safety requirements, such as submitting to regular COVID-19 testing and/or wearing a face covering in our offices
What the job involves
- We are looking for a digital graphic designer to join the lifestyle team, including Eater, Punch, and Thrillist, at Vox Media
- This role is full-time at 40 hours/week
- Own design development of onsite and off-platform visual assets while taking creative direction from the Design Director
- Execute static social design: Produce a determined cadence of Instagram stories and static post carousels per week for Eater’s national and local channels, Thrillist, Punch, and PS, designing with the primary goals of growing on-platform engagement and driving traffic towards a measurable increase in on-site pageviews
- Execute animated social design: Occasionally create motion graphics for the aforementioned channels
- Own and implement each individual brand identity: Deeply familiarize yourself with the brand guidelines for each of the lifestyle pod brands and make connections between these guardrails on paper and the ways the brands exists in the visual world and across social platforms
- Develop a deep understanding of what is and is not considered on-brand for Eater, Thrillist, Punch, and PS. From there, own the process of periodically refreshing the template designs used team-wide
- Meld your marketing brain with design prowess: Along with editorial storytelling, you’ll be tasked with ideating on intriguing marketing campaigns to support our commerce vertical and ongoing promotion around the Eater app, transforming those ideas into compelling digital design schemes
- Consume and share: Consume Eater, Thrillist, Punch, and PS content constantly—read your colleagues’ stories across national and local coverage; stay abreast of conversations in internal trend reporting chats; do so through the lens of what storytelling will work well on our social platforms and bring those ideas to round table with your teammates
- Collaborate. Work closely and collaborate with Audience Development team members, editorial (reporters and editors), Video, and the Design team to bring multiple possible design solutions to the table and ensure that creative needs are translated and executed appropriately and efficiently
- Participate in design reviews. Accept and resolve critiques. Attend and participate in bi-weekly 1:1s, as well as project-specific reviews
- Advocate for accessible design. Follow accessibility guidelines in your work
- Maintain brand standards. Consistently assess your design solutions with a critical eye, ensuring that they are innovative and intriguing, without straying from the visual brand standards
- Uphold tidy and organized workspace. Whether it’s how you’re building your design files and naming layers or tagging edited photos and filing them away, you are consistently reliable in how you organize your work
- Support the lifestyle pod’s commitment to representation. When and where appropriate, always seek design solutions that lift up and celebrate minority voices, views and visuals
- Communicate. Share, share and over share. Be as transparent as possible with your process, ideas, challenges and wins. Ask for help when you need it!
Application process
- If you think you have what it takes, but don't meet every single point in our job posting, please apply with a cover letter to let us know how you believe you can bring your unique skills to the Vox Media team or get in touch! We would love to have a chat and see if you could be a great addition to our team
Our take
Whilst magazines and newspapers are not as popular as they once were, digital journalism is alive and well. However, many people feel that digital content is becoming less natural and informative, and instead has become focused on sensationalism and ‘click-bait’ as a means of advertising.
Vox Media publishes media across various digital platforms, focussing on providing insightful and informative journalism through storytelling, commentary, and cultural conversation. Whilst the company's editorial networks are meant for entertainment purposes, they do this through a means that increases awareness and interest of affiliate brands. Generally, their digital content aims to lead readers to subscribe to a podcast, click a link, or purchase a product.
Marketing through digital publishing is nothing new, but Vox Media has approached this with an interesting perspective by focussing on producing content that inspires a reader to follow up on a brand, as opposed to being suggested to do so. This helps the content remain natural and legitimate, as opposed to feeling spammy and pushy. With numerous acquisitions at its back, and a recent and substantial investment in the company, Vox Media will continue scaling its existing brands and operations, as well as securing the resources to continue its ascent into the future.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-13% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Aug 2015
$200m
SERIES F
Dec 2014
$46.5m
SERIES E
Total funding: $307.7m
Company benefits
- Work from home opportunities
- Comprehensive and inclusive physical and mental healthcare
- 401k program for eligible employees
- Learning and development opportunities
- Employee-assistance programs
- Flexible arrangements depending on job responsibilities
- Generous paid time off
- Expansive parental leave
Company HQ
Dupont Circle, Washington, DC
Leadership
Jim Bankoff
(Chairman & CEO)Jim served as President of Netscape for 2 years before joining Aol as President in 2000. They left after over 6 years to serve as Senior Advisor of Providence Equity Partners and co-found Vox Media in August 2008.
Trei Brundrett
(Senior Advisor)Trei studied at the University of North Carolina before working in Directorship at OzSearch, Mediatruck, Oak Sanderson, and Forward Together. They co-founded Vox Media in 2008, serving since 2017 as COO.
Share this job
View 5 more jobs at Vox Media