Consultancy: Senior Designer, Office of Innovation, New York, USA, 11.5 months

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, innovate...

UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.
 
UNICEF's Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world's children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly -- anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach -- in a traditionally risk-averse field -- to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.
• Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors in order to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

How can you make a difference?

The Office of Innovation seeks a top-level designer who can intake, prioritize and toggle nimbly between multiple projects coming from a geographically dispersed team and who can work tightly with the Interaction & Design Team to execute visually compelling and technically clear outputs for projects. This candidate must have proven experience in being able to take complex and sometimes abstract concepts and visually translate these concepts with clarity and simplicity in ways that are appropriate for the end user.

Due to the diversity of the role, the team is looking for a hybrid designer, who can ideally work across various devices and platforms, who understands both print, exhibition/way-finding and various digital and web mediums as well as planning and structuring design sprints and workshops. We also seek someone who may have a strong suit in event design and logistics, who can work well with the various internal teams to conceptualize and produce materials for our 2019-2020 events which will range in scope and size. The ideal candidate will be a visual communication designer who has experience with complex systems and who is able to toggle between a number of projects at the same time.

The ideal candidate must have a strong sense of UNICEF's programmes and goals, who expresses a passion for designing for social impact through their portfolio, who has experience communicating easily with a diverse range of staff--designers and non-designers alike-- and who has a knack for extrapolating information from team members that can be translated into simplified and articulate ways.

The main responsibilities will be:

• Work closely with Futures team to develop, design and package research material and working papers for targeted reach. This includes but not limited to designing material for roadshows; synthesising outcomes from workshops into handbooks and designing websites as a tool for storytelling.
• Lead on design for events:  Work closely with the Events and Partnerships teams to create collateral for both small and large format events. This includes way-finding systems, exhibition signage, posters and other informational and promotional material including setting up event pages/ websites on platforms like Splashthat. You will also be expected to support on envisioning spaces and events which take place outside of NY, meaning you will need to be able to design for events remotely using only the information provided by the Event Lead (ex. Floor plans, photos, phone meetings with vendors).
• Support the UX design work on gathering user requirements, personas, storyboards, scenarios, flowcharts, wireframes, design sprints and visual design of digital products, platforms and prototypes.
• Manage and maintain any brand identity guidelines developed for products scaling-up (ex. U-Report, RapidPro and other digital products set to scale) as well as provide design guidance and thinking around the sustainability of products to the Scale team. Support the country offices with new U-Report brand and web deployments. Create communication materials, templates and additional branding to help further scale innovation products/projects.
• Work hand in hand with the Partnerships, Communications and Events teams and use design to bring about a more efficient and clear modes of articulating the work we do so we can leverage new and existing partners and showcase the value of our innovation work. This includes, but is not limited to brand management, conducting design sprints for innovation products and the design of assets to support innovation partnerships, communications and events and updating of team onboarding materials.
• Creation of design collateral to support major partnerships - this includes templatizing partnership packages, supporting on partnership-related events needing design and design or art direction of key reports.
• Work with and support the Design team with self initiated exploratory projects (ex. Design research exercises, offsites and prototypes).

To qualify as a champion for every child, you will have…

• A university degree (Bachelor's or higher) in a relevant field (e.g. Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Design for Social Impact/Social Innovation or similar).
• At least 2 years of professional experience in visual communication design, branding, publication design, information design and information architecture, media design, system design or related – and proven experience in translating complex ideas into clear visuals.
• Strong visual design skills particularly in layout, presentations, branding and visualization of systems and complex information and structures. Strong knowledge of design platforms like Adobe Creative Suite, design techniques, software and data visualization.
• Experience in creating and/or managing brands which have scaled up globally.
• Experience in print, digital, UX/UI design, data visualization.
• Ability to design effectively using constrained mediums such as Powerpoint. Ability to design outside of Adobe Creative Suite in apps like Google Drive and 3rd party Google Drive apps.
• Proven capability of working on a project from the concept to the final design package.
• An ability to communicate complex, abstract concepts using both visual, verbal and written language.
• Ability to work with a diverse team in a rapidly-changing work environment: Proven experience working with a diverse team and being able to parse through large amounts of information in order to create synthesized and clear designs.
• Knowledge of SMS technology and mobile usage in developing countries and a familiarity with UNICEF Innovation Labs and products is a plus.
• Fluency in English.

For every child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

View our competency framework at: http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Payment details and further considerations

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.