designer London, England
Job description
Your mission
£200 - £300/day. Flexible contract, part-time 3-4 days a week with some time in our Bloomsbury office.
Wonderbly is a unique, award-winning startup that lives on the intersection of storytelling, engineering, digital and print. We are building a new class of global publishing business that brings millions of people into our superbly high quality products - as co-creators and audiences - and in doing so empower them to build connections with each other.
We write, illustrate, build, design, and sell all of our products directly, and have a terrific team working to produce our wonderful products spanning from Art Directors to Dev Ops. Working together we have sold more than 4 million books in every country in the world, and we’re just getting started! With the work you’ll do here with us, we’d like to think we’re on track towards becoming the UK’s most admired creative company.
Life as Wonderbly’s Story Studio Book Designer
We’re looking for an enthusiastic, highly organised and exceptionally detail-oriented person to join our Story Studio team as a Book Designer, on a freelance basis 3-4 days a week. They’ll be primarily creating story assets for use in our in-house production processes, creating polished picture-book layouts and working with our award-winning illustrators on new picture book concepts.
We’re looking for the kind of person who's a wizard with layer comps and brilliant with blending modes. You’re confident with a bezier curve, master of the marquee and the boss of bitmaps. You're happy to work as a part of a team, of course, as well as working independently to deadlines.
As well as creating assets for our ongoing picture books, part of your role will be to support the Art Director and the team on new book development and concepting, and to be ready to jump into action when the unexpected occurs. Some experience in book design is desirable.
Day-to-day, your role will be to work within the design team and alongside our Producers and Engineers creating Photoshop files for the Wonderbly workflow.
This role would suit someone who likes getting their teeth into technical problem-solving and the mechanics of storytelling, and is confident working across a number of projects at once. We are looking for a colleague who is passionate about books and about storytelling, and eager to share this passion.
A bit about the role:
Working closely with our Art Directors and Producers on a range of exciting projects, making sure that picture book covers and spreads are designed beautifully and image assets are produced to the specifications of the engineering team.Artworking creative assets for use in book production, on our website and for photo shoots.
Participating in new book and new product workshops and development, including concepting and mock-ups of covers and page layouts.
From time-to-time you may need to work hours that aren’t typical, so a flexible approach is needed to get the best from the job.
You’ll use the Adobe CC suite on a daily basis, primarily Photoshop and InDesign.
A little bit about you
Requirements:
Be a Designer, not an illustrator – this is a design role.
Own laptop and subscription to Adobe CC.
You’ll be hands-on and demonstrate an exceptional attention to detail and a keen eye for consistency, as well as a passion for layout, typography, illustration, graphic design and storytelling.
A great team player and all-rounder, able to work within a small team and effectively communicate with stakeholders and senior members of the team
Strong artworking skills, to maintain and improve Wonderbly’s design standards
Excellent organisational and communication skills
Meticulous at file organisation
Able to receive feedback
Experienced with the Adobe CC suite
Experience working for a publisher or a design or communications agency is preferable, but not essential. We welcome applicants without a degree qualification. We operate the Rooney Rule.
About us
Oh hi! We’re delighted that you’re interested in working with Wonderbly, the UK Children’s Publisher of the Year 2021. Below you’ll find out all about us, our mission and values, and the roles we have open right now.
Wonderbly is the world’s leading personalised publishing company. We conceive, design, promote, sell, and make wonderful books for wonderful customers all over the world.
Our mission is to make people feel extraordinarily special, and bring them closer to the people they love, through the power of personalised stories. So far we’ve shipped over 8 million books to over 150 countries. We’ve done this in just eight years, and we’re just getting started.
Getting personalised books to all those millions of customers requires a multidisciplinary team. Our wonderful people have experience across editorial design, research, production, software engineering, marketing, e-commerce, data analysis, print-on-demand manufacturing, shipping… the list goes on.
This means that Wonderbly is a collaborative and creative place to work, with lots of opportunities for growth and development across a broad range of skills.
We’re based in London, where we have a gorgeous, light-filled studio for working together. But like many digital-first companies, we have a hybrid operating model, with many colleagues working from home and further afoot much of the time.
Our values
Wonderbly’s values were born from the three qualities at the heart of ‘Lost My Name’ - our original and best-selling personalised children’s book. These values are Courage, Curiosity and Kindness. And although they naturally have a child-friendly ring to them, these are deeply human values that we believe everyone should live by.
Courage means taking calculated risks and trying things that no one else would. It means setting audacious goals, seeing them through, and being willing to be wrong.
Curiosity means investing in learning, never losing sight of the ‘WHY’. Curiosity allows us to ask silly questions, explore our blind spots, and dip into other disciplines for inspiration.
Kindness is at the heart of our culture: it’s no coincidence that deep friendships form here every day. Kindness means making space for one another, inclusivity as standard, and clear, direct communication. It does not mean “good vibes only”: the kindest conversations are often the hardest.
Equal opportunities employer
Our team is committed to providing equal opportunities for employment regardless of race, religion or belief, ethnic origin, disability, family structure, socio-economic status, age, nationality or citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis (it's the law, but it's also just the right thing to do).
If you have a disability, caring duties, or any other additional needs that require consideration, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate them during the application process.
To see more about our business and products, you can visit us at Wonderbly.com
