Senior Designer (Video & Animation) - 12 Month FTC Sabbatical Cover

The Senior Designer (Video & Animation) role will work in Journey’s 59 Studio and will be part of 59’s multidisciplinary Design Department to research, develop, refine and design responses to a broad slate of creative challenges across 59 and Journey’s global project portfolio.  
59’s Design team is made up of video designers, animators, spatial designers, architects, lighting and technical designers. You will apply your video design/animation skills collaboratively, across a number of projects, to help realise our work.  
This role will suit someone with a minimum of 5 years’ experience designing for live performance, exhibition and/or installations or someone who has been working in another industry or context for some time and is looking to transfer their skills to 59 and Journey’s diverse, ever-expanding portfolio. 

The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following: 

• Working with Project Directors and Designer Directors to analyse and interpret a client brief  
• Attending client-facing design meetings alongside a Project Director and Design Director in order to assimilate and understand a creative brief  
• Engaging in internal design discussions, reviews and critical feedback  
• Supporting the delivery of internal and client-facing design presentations   
• Demonstrating an understanding and an overview of the project as a whole  
• Personally undertaking design work at a number of different developmental stages, which would include:  
  • Conceptual design  
  • Storyboarding  
  • Visualisation and communication to external parties  
  • Building reusable design templates and workflows in various software packages related to your specialism and design approach  
  • Maintaining project files and design assets  
  • Archiving projects  
• Working with a Director to lead and execute the creative process on a project, having an awareness for the details on all aspects of the project  
• Leading and coordinating the design process on multiple, varying scale projects with substantial budgets, taking them to completion  
• Managing freelance teams and assisting with overseeing the delivery of projects on-site
• Undertaking line management of Design Department team members as required  
• Working as the lead designer for smaller scale projects, with the support of members of the Design team  
• Managing your own time confidently and meeting deadlines 
• Contributing to the ongoing work to generate a wider network of freelance/external company relationships  
• Understanding the interdisciplinary nature of the 59 & Journey teams, contributing to understanding one another's workflows and processes in day-to-day work  
• Investigating new ways of engaging audiences through the application of technology to narrative challenges  
• Identifying opportunities for departmental development in both creative and technical areas, including the adoption of new hardware, and software-driven processes  
• Undertaking other project and non-project creative and design work as reasonably required by the company
• Contributing to 59's work around Sustainability, Belonging & Inclusion and Universal Design 

Required

• Minimum 5 years’ experience, education or training in video design and/or animation   
• Demonstrable experience designing projects from pre-concept through to delivery on site   
• Demonstrable interest in a story-driven design approach   
• Excellent command of Adobe tools for motion graphics and video, especially After Effects, Photoshop and Premiere Pro  
• A thorough understanding of digital media formats, including video codecs, 2D graphics and 3D model file formats  
• An ability to multitask effectively and handle multiple workflows at any one time  
• Evidence of a lateral thinking design ability to take a concept / brief and develop it into a specific form    
• Ability to co-conceive design ideas / concepts in visual form with 59’s Design Directors, and communicate them to a wide range of stakeholders, clients, internal team, collaborating creative team, technical teams etc.  
• A demonstrable ability to use research and organisational skills to dig deeper into project briefs
• A good communicator who can convey creative ideas with passion as well as manage expectations   
• A true interest in and ability to work in an interdisciplinary, collaborative environment and with a range of creatives and work as part of a team both within and external to the existing wider Journey team  
• Knowledge of creating work in different territories, with a design portfolio that demonstrates a range of work in different mediums and storytelling formats (i.e. long-form video, music video, theatre show, exhibition, live events, VR etc.)  
• Proficiency with the Microsoft and/or Google Suite
• An ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines  

Desirable

• Analogue and digital drawing skills  
• Strong graphic design skills  
• Familiarity with the wider Adobe Creative Suite softwares such as Indesign and Acrobat
• Experience Keynote, PowerPoint and other layout and presentation software
• Experience of 3D modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering using Cinema 4D, Blender or similar packages  
• Experience of real-time content generation tools, such as Unreal, Touchdesigner, Unity, Notch or similar packages  
• Experience of media servers and playback systems  
• An understanding of recent key themes and industry shifts in video delivery within live events, performances and exhibitions  
• Experience line managing Designers earlier in their careers with considered professional development and training opportunities 

Application: For your application to be considered, please submit a CV & portfolio/showreel demonstrating your experience, along with a bespoke cover letter explaining how your experience meets the required and desirable criteria of this role.
We ask that you write your application in your own words and manage any use of AI in the application process responsibly.

Location: This role is based within the 59 team at Journey’s Benwell Studio in London. We value regular in-person collaboration because we think it leads to the best creative work however hybrid working is available around project commitments. The specific team this role relates to generally works in the studio 3 days per week.

Contract: 12 months Sabbatical Cover

Deadline: Friday 13th November, 10am