Description

Closing Date: 02-May-2024

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.
Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
Benefits- We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days holiday (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.
Freelancers are eligible to apply for an internal role if they are on a Worker Contract and they have worked continuously for 6 months. If they have worked for less than 6 months continuously or have a break of 3 weeks or more between engagements, they must seek Divisional HR approval to apply for an internal role prior to submitting an application.
If they are unsure which contract they are on, they can speak to their booker or the HR BP, however if it helps - both a PAYE freelance or Modus Gross contract is considered a Worker contract and covered by the Worker terms found here.
Job Introduction
The News Design team is a multi-platform, multidisciplinary team within BBC News.
We are responsible for the design and visualisation of a story end to end, across all platforms from our website and app to our flagship news broadcasts and social accounts. The team brings together digital designers, broadcast designers, and developers to provide compelling visual coverage of the biggest and most significant stories.
As a Senior Designer - Storytelling & formats, you will work closely with the Creative Director - Storytelling & formats, and will be responsible for creating new digital storytelling experiences and repeatable formats for our website and app. You will work closely with cross-functional teams of editorial, product and engineering to define how we tell our stories consistently and beautifully across all platforms. Working out how we do that at speed, designing for scale and re-use.
Shaping the visual narrative, and delivering engaging design solutions that work across multiple platforms, this position requires a strong background in cross-platform design with hard won experience of design and storytelling on digital platorms. You need excellent team leadership and change management skills, together with the ability to work tactically and strategically, engaging users, stakeholders and designers alike.
Main Responsibilities
Design strategy:
Contribute to the development of design strategies for new digital formats and storytelling experiences, collaborating with cross-functional teams.
Provide insights and recommendations based on hands-on ux design experience.
Collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements and feedback, aligning design choices with storytelling goals.
Fluent in responsive design and a systems thinker adept at problem-solving at a macro and micro scale across multiple problem spaces.
Strong knowledge of UI, branding, and product design. All deliverables and communication materials are effective and polished. Can devise new concepts and elevates brand expression within the product in elegant ways.
Thorough experience of working with and contributing to a design system.
Can create advanced prototypes utilising real content and data; harnessing video or animation when necessary.
Understands the big picture, but also when to focus on the details, and deliver accurate considered solutions.
Acts as a custodian of high quality contemporary component based design.
Leadership and Collaboration:
Ability to lead a small team of designers working cross-functionally with engineering and editorial, responsible for creating both bespoke solutions and templates for storytelling and new formats.
Foster collaboration and communication between design, development, and editorial, emphasising the value of editorial storytelling in the user experience.
Ability to inspire high design confidence in stakeholders, communicate the thinking behind the work, and show self-assurance with your presentation, narrative and rationale.
Conduct design reviews and provide constructive feedback to ensure high quality, innovative solutions.
User-Centred Design:
Experienced at conducting and initiating user research and usability testing to inform design decisions and validate concepts.
Advocate for the user by incorporating user feedback into the design process, ensuring a user-centric approach.
Championing data and constantly bringing it to the work. Advocating for the user - always
Wireframing and Prototyping:
Create detailed wireframes, interactive prototypes, and design specifications to communicate design concepts effectively.
Iterate on designs based on user testing, stakeholder feedback, and evolving project requirements.
Visual Design:
Develop visually compelling and on-brand design solutions that elevate the storytelling experience.
Ensure consistency across all platforms while pushing the creative boundaries of news presentation.
Component-Driven Design:
Champion and contribute to a component-driven design approach to enhance design consistency and scalability.
Advocate for the importance of our design system, and help maintain a library of reusable design components, collaborating with the wider design team and front-end developers to ensure proper implementation
Design System Contributions:
Contribute to the development and maintenance of a design system to ensure a cohesive and scalable design approach.
Collaborate with the design team to establish and uphold design standards.
Mentorship:
Provide mentorship and guidance to junior designers, fostering a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
Actively participate in design team initiatives and knowledge sharing.
Are you the right person?
Bachelor's degree in Digital Design, HCI, or a related field.
Experience in UX/UI design and ideally with a strong editorial focus in deadline driven environments.
Strong portfolio of design work/case studies demonstrating your principles, methodologies, and approaches.
Proficiency in design tools (e.g., Sketch, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite).
Strong leadership and team management skills.
Excellent communication and collaboration abilities with a passion for editorial storytelling.
Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a big plus.
Good knowledge of accessibility and usability principles.
Finely tuned problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
About the BBC
The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.
We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.
Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.
We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.
To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.