Senior Communications Designer (Individual Contributor)

IDEO London is on a quest for a creative and strategic Communication Designer.About IDEO London:
We're a global design consultancy where curiosity, empathy, and solving complex challenges drive us. For over 40 years, we've partnered with clients to innovate in healthcare, mobility, education, retail, and beyond. Here, every challenge is a chance to grow, connect, and create impact.
Why is this role important for IDEO’s work?
Communications designers are visual designers and storytellers who are able to bring out emotion and share information through a variety of media. They bring systems, services, strategy and solutions to life, in inspiring, moving and persuasive ways. They make complex ideas feel simple and compelling, helping bring clients and teams along on the journey. We count on them to consult, art direct and deliver good design.
What level is this role?
At the Senior Individual level, you are primarily focused on active client work as part of a multidisciplinary project team, where you bring expertise in communication design and as a consultant. You are also expected to learn our business and contribute to crafting communications about our work for the public and potential clients. You are confident in your craft, and are curious to learn more about leading projects and teams as you progress at IDEO.
Once here you will:
Craft visual and strategic communications that resonate emotionally and clarify complex ideas. (e.g. brand strategy and design (writing and visualisation), products, services and experiences, workshop materials, written and visual publications, rapid prototypes for consumer testing, illustrations, exhibition graphics, user interfaces and presentation decks.)
Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team, clients, and specialist partners on diverse challenges.
Participate in all design consultancy phases, from research to strategy and prototyping.
Have opportunities for travel, collaboration, and research across Europe and beyond.
Actively participate in IDEO's London hub, and contribute to building community and expertise around your design craft across the studio.
We’re looking for someone with:
A strong portfolio in visual design, storytelling, digital, and print media.
A strategic mindset – bringing to life not only the possibilities, but the choices too.
A curious, empathetic, and collaborative mindset, open to learning and critiquing.
Confidence collaborating with a multidisciplinary team.
2–6 years of creative industry experience, ready to take on a multidisciplinary role.
Fluency in English, with exceptional writing and narrative skills.
What does IDEO offer you?
Innovation and creativity: Dive into a variety of projects from creating breakthrough products and solutions, to designing new customer experiences, to building innovation capabilities – working alongside talented individuals across disciplines.
Learning and growth: Whether it's leading projects, enhancing your design skills, or exploring new technologies, we're here to support your journey.
Community and well-being: Collaboration and community are central to what we do. We foster moments for creativity, connection, and reflection, respecting the need for work-life balance.
Projects with purpose: We partner with clients to use design as a means of realising their purpose and making a positive impact. We work ‘upstream,’ from defining the problem, designing possible solutions, and exploring what, why and how they might be brought to life. If your jam is finessing production-ready content, this may not be the role for you.Please note that the successful candidate must be based in the UK and have the unrestricted right to work in the UK. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. IDEO proudly supports flexible work.The application deadline for this role is Friday 19th April 2024.
To understand more about the role Communication Designers play in projects like this, read what ‘a day in the life’ of a communication designer looks like.
Some previous projects to check out:
To get a flavour of the work we do in London, take a look at some of our recent case studies here:
Climate action for SMBs – Designing a strategy and experience to help Sage’s SMB customers transition to net zero.
Reframing Menopause – helping QVC meet their customer’s needs by designing with the menopause in mind.
Sustainable packaging system –Helping H&M increase their sustainability and growth, by designing and scaling a universal packaging system for all of their brands.
Day in the life of a communication designer at IDEO
Monday October 7th 2024
9:30 – Meeting With The Community
Your week begins with the community-wide Monday Morning Meeting (MMM). You're in the London Hub today, but because it's a hybrid meeting you join the call in the cafe on the big screen. This time, it's a shorter 'inspiration' session hosted by one of your colleagues, who has invited the community to share stories about climate design. You're eager to share two fascinating examples of how communications design is tackling the climate crisis.
10:00 – Checking-In With Your Team
Right after MMM, you join your project team's daily stand-up. It's a 30-minute gathering where progress is shared, and tasks for the day are prioritised. Since the team is physically present in the studio today, you join them in your project space. The meeting concludes early, giving you extra time to organise your day and tasks, keeping in mind both your immediate goals to prepare for today's client collaboration session, and the team's longer-term objectives like designing and producing materials for user testing next week.
10:30 – Working 'Heads Down'
After making yourself a coffee, it's time for heads down work. The team is going into the field to test concepts next week, and it’s on you to bring them to life in ways that users will easily understand and be able to share feedback on. Time is tight, so you’re doing some quick sketches in Figma, to share and get feedback from the team and client later.
12:30-13:30 – Creating With The Community
Before lunch, you've seen a reminder from a colleague on the #London-Hub Slack channel that 'SaSu' is on today! SaSu is a fun bi-weekly community creative session where everyone is challenged to be creative using unique (and often weird) prompts and materials, whilst eating pizza. Today's session challenges participants to design their own flag.
14:00 – Supporting Business Development
Your afternoon takes a strategic turn as you meet with an Executive Director. They need your design expertise to craft a compelling narrative with bespoke visuals for a healthcare product strategy proposal. They have a lot of content, but need your help to make it persuasive and concise to share with the client on Friday.15:00 – Building With Your Team
It’s back into your project space, where you join the team in preparing for a collaboration call with the clients. You pull your content into a Miro board, and help the team think about how to design the session so the clients can feel a part of the process.
16:00 – Collaborating With Clients
You join the client collaboration session. Your project lead is facilitating the call, but you help by quickly sketching ideas and taking notes on Miro of things the clients are suggesting.
17:00 – Preparing For Tomorrow
You and your team debrief following the client call. There are a few pivots the team agrees to make, to respond to the client’s feedback. You think about how you will change the concepts you’re working on, and email a couple of printers to get quotes for printing the concepts on cards and the rest of the materials to use in the testing sessions next week.
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