Graphic Designer - South Africa

Job Introduction

Location: South Africa - 100% Remote / Home Working (Must permanently live in South Africa & have the right to work without restrictions to apply for this role)

Pay Rate: $5.50 USD

Contract: 12-month initial contract (Highly likely to be extended, but no guarantees) - Self-employed contractor. Responsible for own taxes.

Hours of work: 37.5hrs

Hiring Manager: Sarah Fletcher

Recruiter: Will Thom

First things first! What is Twinkl? What is Twinkl's mission?

Twinkl is here to "help those who teach." It's what brings us to work every day. We're proud to create educational resources that can be used at each step of a child's learning journey.

Our award-winning resource collection - created by teachers for teachers - provides unlimited supplementary digital and printable teaching resources at an unbeatable value.

We have over a million editable resources, and new content is added every day. Don't see what you need? Just ask! We make bespoke resources for our members as part of our world-class customer service promise to help those who teach.

We support educators and children around the world, and we’re committed to transforming lives through education.

Whoever you are, whatever you teach, Twinkl is here for you!

The Role:

As a Graphic Designer at Twinkl, you’ll join a small production team made up of Teacher Content Writers, Teacher Content Editors, Illustrators and Graphic Designers to produce a wide variety of beautiful learning materials that will be downloaded, printed, and utilised for learning in education settings around the world. Upon joining, you’ll undergo 3 weeks of foundation training learning about our brand guidelines, design templates, software and working methods, giving you the tools needed to be a fantastic, efficient and effective designer of educational materials. 

Once training is completed, you’ll utilise programs such as InDesign, PowerPoint and Word to work through a steady stream of editorial and layout design work, collaborating with the qualified teachers who write and check the content for our resources before they’re uploaded to our website. Within Country/Product teams we create different types of resources covering all areas of the curriculum and across a wide age range every week. The resource types and age range you will be working on will depend on the team you join. As such, you should be passionate about education and excited to contribute to a market-leading business that helps teachers spend more time with children and less time doing the admin that surrounds it.

A little about the culture within design

This position is a 12-month contract for 37.5 hours per week of work. As a self-employed position, it comes with lots of flexibility in how you manage your schedule, but unlike many other freelance roles you’ll be welcomed into and feel very much a part of a focused team that meets regularly via video call, collaborates together and works closely as its own production unit. This is a great environment for anyone looking for a close knit, communicative and friendly work environment, but less well suited to those who would prefer the total flexibility and independence that shorter term, project based freelance positions offer. 

As a designer at Twinkl, you’ll also benefit from being part of a global community of 200+ Graphic Designers across different levels of experience, backgrounds and specialisms. The team regularly shares and celebrates the excellent work that they produce with each other, as well as running forums to share knowledge, tips and tricks to keep your design practice as sharp as possible. 

Applying 

If you are interested in becoming part of the amazing Twinkl design team, send us your CV and portfolio of your best editorial and layout design work (think magazines, booklets, posters and anything that involves heavy text) and we may be in contact to discuss adding you to our Graphic design pool. When suitable roles become available, we’ll get in touch regarding the next steps of the recruitment process. Being in the pool does not prevent you from applying for other Twinkl roles, so please keep a lookout on our careers page too.

How you’ll spend your day:

• Your morning may start with a short video call with the rest of your production team. This meeting gives everyone a chance to update on what you’re working on, highlight any blockers and review priorities. It’s also a chance to have a chat with your colleagues and set you up for the day ahead!
• Day to day, you’ll use InDesign, PowerPoint and Word to work on creating the highest priority resources in your team's production backlog. This work lives in a project management system called “Jira”, which you’ll receive full training on when you join. 
• You may also have a regular catch up with your line manager to check in on how you’re feeling and the work you’re involved in. Or a CPD (continuous professional development) session organised by the training team. There’s always lots to get involved in if you’re interested in growth within the business. 

To succeed in the role, you will:

• Have excellent English and Afrikaans language skills.
• Have strong experience in InDesign.
• Have experience of following brand guidelines.
• Be able to take on feedback and use this to further develop your designs.
• Have an eye for detail, creativity and imagination.
• Be proficient at managing workload and meeting targets and deadlines.
• Care about education and helping teachers and learners across the globe

In this role, you will learn:

• How to be an in-house designer within a professional workplace.
• Learn and understand the resource lifecycle from our teachers writing the content to our users downloading the content to teach.
• Learn the importance of the end user, accessibility and functionality.
• To work in an Agile production team environment.
• Work with other Twinklees across the business through live briefs and workshops to improve your design practice.
• Opportunities to learn more about different areas within Twinkl via shadowing.

You’ll work with:

• An international team of designers, illustrators & teachers to create our world renowned teaching materials. 
• A team leader and a team of 200+ designers from other products who you can share ideas and solutions with.
• A variety of people from other departments in the business.

Equipment Checklist

What is Provided by Twinkl?

• Twinkl Google account (access to Gmail, Google Calendar, sheets etc…)
• Access to Adobe account
• Access to Microsoft Office
• Twinkl Account

What you will need to provide:

• Reliable internet connection - use speed checkers such as fast.com to check connection.
• Minimum speed:
• 16Mbs download
• 8Mbs upload
• 50ms average latency when pinging 8.8.8.8
• Should be able to be on a call with 10 people, having camera and microphone on, with no connection issues
• Computer or laptop, Recommended spec:
• 10th or 11th Generation Processor
• 16Gb RAM
• 512 SDD Hard drive
  (This allows for all necessary programs and systems to run optimally)
• Two monitors is preferable but not required. This allows for design working space and with content and other necessary tabs open.
• Mouse
• Webcam (and microphone facility)
• Adequate working space - ideally a desk size that is at least 84cm across and 70cm deep

Other Considerations

• Good working environment free from distractions
• Boundaries in place to separate work from home life

Please submit a reduced design portfolio (no more than 10 pages) on a PDF with your application so we can understand your skills and suitability. If successful in acquiring an interview we will ask you to present your portfolio. What we look for in a strong portfolio is editorial and layout designs. This can be from magazines, booklets, posters and anything that involves heavy text.

Requirements:

We're interested in anyone who meets one, or a combination of the following:

• Have a degree or equivalent in Graphic Design or a creative subject or experience in an equivalent field
• Is good fun to be with and has the ability to communicate well with others.
• Is organised, able to work to deadlines, and manages time effectively.
• Has a hard work ethic, is passionate, driven and loves what they do.
• Is honest, trustworthy and reliable.
• Has a passion for design and produces quality work, continuously looking to learn and build upon existing and new skills.

Benefits:

In return for everything you can bring, we can offer you an exciting role in a fast-growing and dynamic business, with plenty of career opportunities.

Here’s a couple of the things that make Twinkl a great place to be:

• A friendly, welcoming and supportive culture. We believe work should be fun and always put people before process.
• Flexible working with opportunities to work from home.
• Diversity, inclusion and belonging - our Employee Network Program includes working groups for LGBTQ+, People of Colour, Disabilities (visible and invisible), Women in Tech and Working Parents.
• Continuous Professional Development (CPD) - Our ever-evolving program includes: Monthly progression reviews, Twinkl’s Management Scheme, commercial awareness training, leadership coaching quads, career chats and mentoring