MULTIMEDIA DESIGNER: Tell visual stories that inspire change
By: Code For Africa
Tags: Opportunities

Positions in: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, elsewhere in Africa

Use your visual storytelling skills to champion digital democracy pioneers across Africa.

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Multimedia Designer to join our Engagement team and help turbocharge audience engagement around our digital democracy and civic technology projects.

The successful candidate will help CfA use animated GIFs and short viral videos, along with graphic design and illustrations, to weave compelling narratives, amplify our storytelling and spark conversations on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

We’d prefer someone who can join one of our hubs in Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa, but if you have incredible skills we’ll consider applicants from anywhere in Africa.

Your application will be judged based on your creative talent and technical expertise in graphic design, illustration, animation and social media video production. Candidates can hail from the media, advertising, or any other creative industry. All you need is evidence of transforming great creative ideas into measurable impacts.

The primary language for the job will be English, but candidates who also have a mastery of Amharic, or Arabic, or Kiswahili and/or French will have an advantage.

The successful candidate will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team, using digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners. They will work alongside forensic researchers, data analysts, technologists, infographic designers and illustrators, as well as traditional investigative journalists.

Required: minimum requirements include:

You’ve worked on content that went viral, became a meme, or made a meaningful impact on the world.

You have a minimum of 1+ years experience as an in house designer, at a creative agency or successful freelancer.

You have mastery of Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, in particular Illustrator, Photoshop, XD and AfterEffects.

You understand the relative strengths of the different social media platforms, and the different narrative/visual techniques necessary for engaging the different audiences on these platforms.

You are able to work with technical staff and projects to create powerful content that grabs attention and sparks conversation online.

You are able to work with writers, developers and product managers to plan out visual content across multiple platforms.

You have a portfolio featuring excellent graphic design and illustration skills.

You have a portfolio/showreel showing excellent animation, GIF making and social media video skills.

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

You’ve built an engaged community or gathered an active following around the content you’ve created.

You’re experienced with digital collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.

You’re familiar with design prototyping tools like Figma and Sketch.

You have a knack for telling immersive stories across different platforms/audiences, customised to the specific audience while remaining true to the core narrative.

You’ve worked on brands or projects that are globally recognised, disruptive, or have a unique African aesthetic.

Language and Location Requirements:

Location: Candidates from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are preferred, but strong candidates from across Africa will be considered.

Primary languages: English

Preferred but not required: Amharic, Arabic, Hausa, French or Kiswahili.

About the Role:

The successful candidate will join us on CfA’s Engagement team. The team is responsible for telling CfA’s story, and keeping it accessible and engaging. We amplify the work of our experts and external project partners across Africa, and communicate our shared vision of a more open, connected, and technologically empowered continent.

As the Multimedia Designer, you’ll join the team as our lead visual communicator. You will work alongside copywriters to create the narrative, copyeditors to make the content sing, and social media strategists to ensure that we’re getting the best out of the platforms themselves.

You will occasionally also collaborate with our Data Designer and UX (user experience) Designer in CfA’s editorial StoryLab team.

Your primary role will be to find visual treatments for the branded content and technologies that our teams build. This will include creating custom video, GIFs and explanatory infographics for social media, as well as designing templates for recurring posts such as event announcements, blog posts and other communication products. You will need to inject a sense of passion, energy and immediacy into all these campaigns, through clever envelope-pushing designs. The resulting content will be published across all of our platforms, to engage and inspire members of our ecosystem.

In doing so you will stay at the cutting edge of your field, curating benchmarks and keeping ahead of trends in digital storytelling to ensure that CfA stands apart.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

Produce designs to accompany CfA and partner content, as well as social media promotions and campaigns (examples from The Economist, Facebook/PesaCheck and Thomson Reuters Foundation).

Produce gifs for social media promotions and campaigns (examples from The Economist, UN Women and NPR).

Contribute designs and animations for social media videos (like these examples from the World Health Organisation and Viral Facts Africa).

Maintain a reference list / database of competitors and benchmarks of quality.

Develop a distinctive and world-class visual style to put CfA ahead of global partners.

Support the development of coherent brand guidelines for CfA, our social media and platforms.

Enforce a consistent, high visual standard across CfA comms platforms.

What We Offer:

A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.

A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.

Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.

A chance to shine on a global stage, publishing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.

How to apply:

Please fill in this form by 25th June 2021.