Work With Us: Senior Designer

Work With Us: Senior Designer

Who We Are

Nightjar is an experience design and technology company based in Sydney, specialising in UX strategy, design, and innovative tech. We partner with brands and startups across the world, to build engaging design-led solutions which make a global impact. Our clients include Destination NSW, Pernod Ricard, House of Heat, Sonoma, ALNF, Lifeline, MAMA, National Dental Care, Two Good and the United States Studies Centre to name a few.

Nightjar firmly believes in the power of design and technology to shape the world for the better, and so it's vital for everyone in our team to be passionate in this pursuit.

As Design Director at Nightjar, you will work with the team to solve user problems through design and technology. You will work closely with the entire end-to-end Nightjar team to work up new ideas to push our clients forward and ensure we are always delivering meticulously crafted, well-thought out and unique solutions.

Nightjars are a special breed; we push ourselves to create work that gets results, and as a team we break through the barrier of convention to deliver original, impactful experiences.  We are passionate above all else, and you will need to demonstrate an energy and enthusiasm for solving problems and the work that goes out the door. This unwavering dedication to quality means we’ve been nominated for Awwward’s Studio of the Year in 2020, 2021 and 2022, with a few Good Design Awards, AGDAs, and a Webby to boot.

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Your Role

As Design Director at Nightjar, you will help the team develop brands, creative concepts and designs across a broad spectrum of interactive content and platforms. You will work most closely with Ahmed, our Chief of Innovation and lead the design team. Ahmed’s attention to detail is second to none, so you should also have a keen eye. You will display a strong level of conceptual thinking and be able to convey your ideas with both verbal and written comms, internally and to clients. You will help set the bar for the quality of creative output at Nightjar. You will produce experiences that are not only highly intuitive and engaging, but answer real business problems.

An understanding of strategy, ideation, visual design as well as current and emerging technologies is essential. You will be excited to explore different territories and ideas, and workshop multiple solutions to the problem at hand. You will take on feedback and work together with Ahmed and Bonnie (our Head of Experience Strategy) to create groundbreaking, award winning, and talked about work.

What You’ll Do

• Take it next level: Bring cutting edge ideas and concepts to the team that push boundaries in how people interact with the products we design. Work with the Strategy team to ensure creative concepts are on brand and strategically sound.
• Be rigorous: Explain, discuss, and justify design decisions using user-centered design principles.
• Be meticulous: Maintain and strive for the highest creative and design quality possible.
• Be passionate: Put the effort in to make it look stunning, collaborating with our front-end developers to bring your work to life.
• Problem solve: Proactively identify/resolve issues to our Producers and know when to push back, especially on decisions that impact the design craft.
• Prototype: Understand animation principles/process to deliver on rapid-prototyping, micro-interactions and contextual magic moments throughout the experience.
• Be a team player: Work closely with the Strategy, UX, Technical and Production teams throughout projects, communicating regularly on everything from quoting hours needed for tasks, and keeping producers abreast on project statuses and delivery. Work closely with producers to schedule deadlines, and resolve resource and delivery issues.
• Elevate the Nightjar brand: Working with the leadership team to move the Nightjar brand forward in the design community - through our social channels, as well as through talks and presentations - continually reinvigorating our visual representation as times change, but remaining true to the Nightjar vision and values.
• Be award winning: We set the bar high at Nightjar and want the design and technology world to look to us for inspiration whilst collectively moving the industry forward. Award winning work keeps us innovative and hungry to compete on the world stage.
• Mentor and inspire your core team, through the championing of craft across discipline unlocking opportunities to help them grow and deepen their skills.
• Be a champion for the client, by respecting their brand, strategy, messaging and identity, but pushing them to greatness at the same time.
• Lead multiple projects and work streams co-currently from concept to delivery.
• Creative direction collaboration with Chief Innovation Officer to lead the design craft and execute the creative vision.
• Build relationships with clients. Present to and meet with clients of all levels. Finding opportunities to expand the remit for the design team with current clients.
• Lead the team to facilitate workshops internally and with Nightjar clients, inspiring creativity and valuable outputs.
• Grow the design team As Nightjar matures you will help build a world-class design team, as Ahmed also continues to grow a world-class engineering team - ensuring what is imagined becomes a reality.

Skills

• Proficient in Figma, and Adobe suite with a keenness to learn emerging tools. You will lead and own the design process.
• Animation tools such as Framer, Principle and After Effects skills to create prototypes from your designs and allow for easy handoff to our development team.
• Understanding of pattern libraries to full design systems.
• Knowledge of visual design theory (i.e., composition, colour theory, typography etc.)
• At Nightjar, we hire for attitude and train for skills. We recognise that new tools, products and systems are always appearing and we're always open to trying out new processes if they help our productivity, efficiency, and happiness. You'll need to also be flexible and willing to throw out old systems that no longer serve us or our partners.
• The Nightjars work in Slack and Notion. These are all intuitive programs which help streamline our workflow and delegate tasks.  You'll be using them daily to communicate and manage your projects.

Required Experience

• 5+ years working in startups, studios or agencies delivering top-notch interaction design for 💻 web and mobile📱platforms that drive digital direction for brands, and a portfolio that reflects this
• Excellent working knowledge of design processes, methodologies and principles
• A love for the craft of design before anything else, with a strong understanding of user experience and information architecture.
• You will need to demonstrate your design capability by showing a strong portfolio full of beautiful, usable experiences designed for all kinds of devices and contexts

Nightjar Perks

• Leafy and lovely studio environment in a cool hood
• Monday morning coffee & weekly kick-off
• Fortnightly Friday team lunches
• Monthly Nightjar excursions
• Annual Nightjar trips away
• Birthday day off (take it whenever you like)
• Monthly Friday lunch 'Wine & Refine' sessions to discuss what we did well and what we can improve
• Monthly Nightar Talks sessions, where the team select external speakers, from any creative industry, to inspire us
• Performance reviews and development plans to enable you to shine ✨
• Personal tax returns completed for you
• Training budget for whatever tickles your fancy, we're always here to help you grow
• A team surrounding you who is dedicated to doing the absolute best that can be done on any given opportunity
• Work on Award-winning projects and learn from Awwwards and Webby judges
• A grumpy office Griffon by the name of Graeme, and his little brother Brian 🐶🐶

Apply

Please send your cover letter, CV and portfolio to: work@nightjar.co

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and especially encourage women and members of underrepresented communities to apply.

Sorry, we’re sticklers - applications without portfolios will not be considered!