Graphic Designer

Campus Sonar is seeking a Graphic Designer at our HQ office in Madison, WI.

Our Graphic Designer will bring Campus Sonar’s brand to life from our audience’s first interactions to delighting our customers. You will be responsible for bringing data and ideas from concept to creation, visually representing the brand both internally and externally for a variety of media across all marketing, sales, and client channels. Your work will help illicit respect and trust from our audiences, prospects, and clients by ensuring creative, consistent design that reflects Campus Sonar’s core values and brand attributes.

Applicants are encouraged to contact the hiring manager (Bri Krantz) directly with questions related to the Graphic Designer role or fit, the company, or the culture. Applicants will be creative and imaginative and enjoy concepting and creating custom visual designs for projects and publications (including web); designing sales, marketing, and customer success materials (including digital, print, and events), and working simultaneously on numerous different types of projects across all channels. This position will be our first and sole full-time designer, joining a small marketing team in an early-stage company currently in its first growth period (10-15 employees in Madison and remote).

Applicants must have previous experience in a similar role; front-end development experience is not required but is a plus. Cover letters are strongly recommended to include with your application, and portfolios or collections of previous relevant design work is required.

Starting salary for this position is around $61,000 annually.

Essential Functions:

Brand Vision and Design

• Own and lead the creative vision of the visual brand by ensuring creative concepts and outputs align with business goals and strategies. Collaborate with stakeholders and the Marketing Manager to develop and maintain an appropriate understanding of business needs. Learn existing design elements and pitch new ideas as you become more familiar with the brand and the business.
• Own and deliver visual elements for all forms of media (e.g., web pages and landing pages, social media posts, blogs, emails, whitepapers, case studies, infographics, presentations, collateral, eBooks, reports and other client deliverables, tradeshow materials, etc.); create original and custom designs.
• Manage all final production processes (i.e., online, digital, print, and physical). Understand print processes to ensure quality and inspect proofs for accuracy along with the Marketing Manager as needed.
• Take direction from written and verbal ideas and convert them into brand-aligned visual elements, including translating data into designs that convey the intent of the data/analysis (e.g., designing research reports for industry distribution). Strong ability to concept new designs and ideas into visual elements that complement the Campus Sonar story.
• Understand and design to the differences between internal and external deliverables.
• Manage various projects and priorities, and produce files appropriate for each project. Maintain files and folders for both retention and sharing purposes (e.g., source files vs. common use files).
• Build and maintain visual brand guidelines that reflect appropriate design trends and align with business needs. Proactively assist team members with understanding necessary elements for the work they do.
• Be an involved team member; bring forward fresh ideas and actively interact with all teams to help present concepts and content that are visually engaging and useful in understanding the intent.

Communications and Collaboration

• Effectively communicate design concepts and recommendations to reviewers and stakeholders.
• Find ways to visually express highly-technical and complex information that makes the information easy to understand, engages the intended audience, and meets business needs.
• Participate in the peer review process. Gracefully provide and accept feedback. Develop strong processes for determining how and when to incorporate feedback with the Marketing Manager and marketing team.
• Identify the goals behind all design needs and work collaboratively with all teams to understand their needs and develop visual elements that meet those needs.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing, brainstorming, and problem solving.
• Contribute to, discuss, and implement ideas for process improvement, innovation, and efficiency in areas related to your role.
• Treat fellow employees with respect and exhibit that respect in daily work.

Project Management

• Create, manage, and execute/meet timelines for all projects. Work with the Marketing Manager to prioritize and escalate projects as needed.
• Manage internal stakeholder communications for your projects and assignments, keeping the Marketing Manager, Content Strategist, and others as appropriate up to date on status, challenges, and opportunities related to your work.
• Develop an efficient and effective process for creation and review of all design.
• Identify decision points and escalate them as appropriate.
• Manage and prioritize multiple assignments and ensure quality work is completed on time.

Position Requirements and Preferences:

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design or related field. Additional front-end development capabilities (or a desire/willingness to learn coding such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript) and accessibility capabilities will be a plus.
• Two or more years of professional experience in a graphic design position or equivalent work experience working in an education, business, or agency environment on design projects. Specific, demonstrable experience translating data/research analysis into visual elements is desired.
• Experience with design professional software such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop is required.
• Experience with web design and designing print materials is required. Mobile and custom email design experience is a plus.
• Experience managing multiple projects and assignments as well as assessing or clarifying project goals, scope, and timeline. Demonstrated knowledge defining project communications/meetings; using resources efficiently; and identifying challenges, risks, and opportunities to deliver quality work aligned with goals.
• Experience with Content Management Systems (CMSs) such as HubSpot is preferred, but not required.

Knowledge and Skills Required for Position

• Collaborative attitude and focus on sharing knowledge with team members, including challenges, tips and tricks, strategies, and problem solving.
• Highly communicative with team and manager about the status of assignments, including changes, challenges, and opportunities. Takes initiative to not only identify assignment and status, but also explore and propose alternative solutions when appropriate.
• Exceptional ability to identify the needs of different stakeholders and adjust communication style, tone, and language accordingly and effectively.
• Demonstrated ability to fail, learn from and admit mistakes, and determine and implement different approaches for success.
• Demonstrated ability to make decisions and know when to escalate concerns proactively and be engaged in finding solutions.
• Self-starter who takes initiative to learn, leveraging current resources as well as identifying new ones in order to be more efficient, deliver better results, problem solve, and optimize opportunity.
• Demonstrated ability to have transparent and professional conversations with team members and provide and accept constructive feedback with respect.
• Ability to understand and analyze complex business issues, specifically in higher education.

Compensation:

Starting salary for this position is around $61,000 annually.

Feel Good About Where You Work.

Campus Sonar is a division of a for-profit affiliate of Ascendium Education Group, a non-profit dedicated to student success and college access and completion for 50 years. We are committed to doing what’s right for our customers and our community, and we support local and national education initiatives through personal and corporate philanthropy.

Our employee giving program, Ascendium Cares, is the embodiment of that commitment. We encourage everybody at Ascendium to get involved, whether through a United Way pledge, paid volunteer time off or a range of other fun events that benefit the adopted nonprofit organization we support in each of our communities.

Nationally, we’ve given more than $250 million to fund research and campus-based access and completion initiatives at colleges and universities. Basically, you’ll feel good about working here. Learn more about our history, culture, and generous benefits package at https://www.ascendiumeducation.org/careers.