Freelance Associate Director, Design

VSA’s purpose is to design for a better human experience. As a strategy and design agency, we blend consumer insights and data with human-centered design to activate meaningful, motivating and measurable experiences in an increasingly noisy world. With offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, VSA offers a full range of fully integrated capabilities-branding, advertising, data science and technology-all under one roof. VSA is also a proud member of Meet The People, an international family of unified and independent agencies. For more than 40 years, we have delivered solutions for business and creative leaders at some of the world’s most respected brands and forward-thinking organizations, including Google, Nike and IBM. 

IBM Creative is responsible for the sophistication and strategic evolution and expression of the IBM brand and sub-brands across every experience and encounter, internally and externally. We represent and support all IBM businesses horizontally and vertically. Our work crosses nearly every category of output: research and strategy, communications and content development, symbology and systems, digital and physical experiences, tools and training. Our goal is to maintain modernity, tangibility and understanding of the IBM brand in the world.

Role:

The IBM Creative design practice is looking for an experienced and highly motivated Visual Designer who is passionate about ideas, brand experience and design, and looking to work with like-minded people. The professional must have a strong attention towards strategic, simple, smart design, and a keen eye for a modernist approach to typography and information design. The right candidate should have conceptual skills with identity systems, and experience working across media. Work will include a range of assets and projects, including online, digital, motion, data visualization, print, social, video, and events.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

• Execute projects from conception, design, through execution.
• Produce deliverables from print to online and multimedia.
• Execute brilliant 2D animations that start with an elegant minimalist design concept.
• Produce sketches, storyboards, and develop animated sequences and stories. 
• Bring abstract concepts to life though typography, illustration, iconography and photography.
• Deep understanding of IBM’s business strategies and goals.
• Command of IBM brand’s vision, systems, and documentation.
• Contribute to style guides, UI toolkits, and other design documents, as needed.
• Produce comps and assist with presentation preparations.
• Work with senior design team members to establish priority, fidelity and delivery of tasks.
• Effectively communicate conceptual ideas and detailed design rationale both verbally and visually.
• Speak and present to range of stakeholders.
• Ensure quality control and outcomes.

Required Experience:

• Designing experiences across media.
• Utilizing knowledge of grids, typography, graphic design, color, layout, iconography, imagery, and

  design patterns and systems to address ambiguous, complex problems and projects. 

• A passion for well-conceived and crafted animation, and the ability to distinguish good, innovative design from bad, careless work.
• Problem solving and idea generation, effectively visualizing and creating concepts into the end products.
• Investigating, innovating, and developing trends in creative with an emphasis on brand

  experience and design. 

• Actively seeking feedback and review of work; accept and act upon creative/technical direction.
• Taking direction well and being nimble to extend designs across platforms.
• Distinguishing good design from bad, careless from well-conceived and crafted.
• Being passionate, confident, empathetic, positive and approachable.
• Attention-to-detail, strong organizational skills and time management.
• Collaboration with others-stakeholders, technical teams, partners and other designers.

Preferred Technical and Professional Experience:

• Applications: Adobe Creative Suite (highly proficient), Figma, MS Office (.PPT), Github 
• Motion skills
• 3D skills a plus (Cinema 4D, Blender)
• Web standards experience and knowledge as a plus

Chicago Estimated Salary Range

$75—$120 USD

VSA Partners is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive, equitable environment for all employees. All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit and business need.

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