Designer jobs in Westminster, greater london

About us

The Economist Educational Foundation is a fast-growing charity on a mission to ensure that every child is empowered to think critically and communicate effectively about the world’s most complex current issues. Last year, 10,800 teachers downloaded Topical Talk lessons, reaching 532,000 children in over 86 countries. We are on track to double this number, reaching over 1 million school children by the end of 2026.

Topical Talk helps children join inspiring discussions about the news by providing weekly lessons for classroom discussions, international prizes and teacher training partnerships. Our programme has received international recognition, including from UNESCO and the Global Media and Information Literacy Awards. High-quality graphic design is central to what we do; our teachers love our resources because they are beautifully presented, designed to enhance student learning and to inspire a lifelong curiosity about the world around them. 

The role

We are seeking a creative, agile and ambitious Graphic Designer to lead the visual identity of our flagship educational programme, Topical Talk Headlines.

Working three days a week, this role offers an extraordinary amount of creative freedom. Every week brings a brand-new global news story, and it will be up to you to establish its unique look and feel. From choosing typography and vibrant colour palettes to deciding between illustration and photography, you will have the autonomy to design resources that make complex, intimidating global issues accessible and engaging for young people aged 10-16 around the world.

Reporting to the Director of Programmes and working closely with our experienced in-house Designer, you will be embedded in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. You will partner with our expert team of ex-teacher content creators to brainstorm, iterate and deliver world-class classroom resources on tight, overlapping deadlines. While your primary focus will be Topical Talk Headlines, you will also support wider brand and marketing projects across the charity as time allows. 

Responsibilities

Visual identity and resource creation:

• Own the weekly design of Topical Talk Headlines: translate complex global topics into beautiful, clear and practical learning resources, from worksheets and posters to interactive slides and educational games
• Design for global accessibility: use clear information hierarchy, considered layouts and colour-signposting to support teachers and ensure students, including those learning in a non-native language, can seamlessly navigate nuanced concepts
• Uphold our brand standard: deliver high-quality, polished designs that our teachers expect and that reflect the premium reputation of The Economist Educational Foundation
• Design for modern youth experiences: create contemporary, vibrant visuals that reflect and respect how young people engage with the world
• Source impactful imagery: curate and adapt photography and illustration using stock libraries as a base, applying our specific brand guidelines to pick authentic, non-cliché visuals that resonate with children and enhance global stories

Collaboration and production management:

• Work in tandem with Educational Content Leads: engage in rapid, collaborative feedback loops to edit and refine resources, ensuring perfect alignment between the text and visual design
• Manage overlapping production schedules: stay highly organised across a quick, 2.5-week production cycle from initial brainstorming to final digital publication
• Maintain strict quality control: catch typos, spot alignment issues and make sure layouts stay clean and consistent from page to page

Innovation and process improvement:

• Proactively suggest process improvements: identify new tools, templates or workflows to optimise our internal production and feedback loops
• Champion student engagement: stay curious about modern design trends. Gather visual inspiration to introduce interactive digital formats or fresh aesthetic approaches to our lessons

Skills and behaviours

You are a creative self-starter who is passionate about global current affairs and believes that great design can change how young people understand the world. You possess the following:

• A portfolio of inspiring design: proven experience delivering highly visual layouts that synthesise complex information beautifully and cleanly
• Speed, agility and decisiveness: the ability to work efficiently within a 3-day week, making confident design decisions and implementing editorial feedback rapidly
• Flawless attention to detail: ensuring final resources are completely error-free
• A deeply collaborative spirit: you love brainstorming, co-creating and working side-by-side with content writers to elevate concepts
• Technical mastery: highly proficient in Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) as well as PowerPoint and Google Slides. Comfort using or upskilling in tools like Canva and Vimeo is a plus.

Experience

You have...

• A degree in graphic design, illustration, visual communication or a related discipline – or equivalent professional portfolio experience
• Mid-weight industry experience working in-house, within an agency or as an established freelancer
• Extensive experience designing multi-page documents, slide decks or interactive educational/informational assets
• Experience managing tight, cyclical production deadlines independently

You might also have (desirable but not essential):

• Data visualisation: experience interpreting data to create clear, accurate charts, graphs and infographics
• UX/UI web design: basic experience or an understanding of user experience design to help shape how teachers interact with our resources online
• Video editing/animation: experience creating or editing short-form video and motion graphics, on Premiere Pro, After Effects or Canva

We’re particularly keen for you to apply if you are from a community under-represented in the charity sector or have lived experience of facing extra barriers because of your background. 

Furnishing Futures is an innovative charity creating fully furnished, healing homes for survivors of domestic abuse who have been rehoused in empty social housing. We do this by partnering with the interiors industry, which donates high quality furnishings that might otherwise end up in landfill. 

We are looking for an enthusiastic and talented junior designer who is passionate about our mission to assist our Homes Design team in creating a wide range of trauma-informed homes for beneficiaries and their children. You will need to be organised, compassionate, committed to anti-discrimatory practice and able to work at a fast pace. This position is based in Leyton E10 and involves flexibility with some work outside usual office hours, as well as travelling to all London boroughs. Tasks will vary from practical and physical design to administration and data entry. You will have a can-do attitude where no problem is too big and no task is too small.

You'll be joining a small team of Homes Designers making a huge difference to the lives of survivors and their children. 

Senior Service Designer  

 
Location: remote. This role can be based at any of Barnardo's national offices. Regular local and national travel will be required. 
 

Help us design services that transform childhoods  

At Barnardo's, we believe every child deserves a safe, happy and hopeful future. For over 150 years, we've been innovating to improve the lives of children, young people and families across the UK. Today, we run more than 800 services and are committed to making them excellent, inclusive and designed with the children, young people and families who use them. 

As a senior member of the Service Design team, you will play a vital role in applying service design methods to deliver measurable improvements in service quality, efficiency, value and outcomes for children, young people and families. 

We are continuing to strengthen how we design and improve services across Barnardo's, working across a complex and evolving portfolio that spans children's services, digital delivery and business development. 

This role offers the opportunity to shape not only individual services, but how service design is used to support decision-making, prioritisation and innovation across the organisation. 

This is a hands-on role as well as a strategic one – you'll be actively designing, prototyping and iterating services as well as shaping direction and decision-making. 

As a Senior Service Designer, you will: 

• Work across a portfolio of projects, balancing priorities and adapting to changing organisational needs 

• Contribute to service development and proposals, working with business development colleagues to shape service models 

• Influence decision-making and prioritisation, using evidence and insight to guide direction 

• Identify opportunities to improve services in ways that deliver better outcomes, greater efficiency and value for money 

• Lead the end-to-end design of services in complex environments, shaping user-centred, evidence-based solutions that respond to organisational priorities, and creating service maps, blueprints, prototypes and other design artefacts to bring ideas to life 

• Test and iterate service concepts in response to feedback and learning, refining solutions to improve outcomes 

• Ensure services are coherent and integrated across online and offline channels 

• Work across functions including business development, digital, finance, operations, research and policy to engage stakeholders and support organisational change 

• Mentor and support colleagues – developing confidence and skills, with the potential to provide line management support to junior designers where appropriate 

• Develop practice and contribute to standards, frameworks and reusable design patterns 

• Share learning internally and externally, contributing to professional communities of practice and helping raise the profile of service design at Barnardo's 

This is a varied, hands-on and project-focused role that allows for autonomy, creativity and real impact. You'll be part of a warm, committed team that shares learning, supports wellbeing, and is united in a clear mission: designing for better outcomes for children and families. 

You'll work with a high degree of autonomy, navigating complexity and ambiguity, delivering tangible improvements to services and contributing to a growing and evolving design practice. 

What We're Looking For 

We're looking for a Senior Service Designer who can: 

• Work autonomously to lead the design of complex services 

• Manage competing priorities effectively across projects, balancing time, focus and trade-offs 

• Influence stakeholders and support organisational change beyond immediate project teams, communicating design decisions and complex ideas clearly to a range of audiences 

• Understand how services operate within wider organisational systems, and use this to inform decision-making and support effective change 

• Confidently use a range of evidence, including user research, service data and performance insights, to inform decisions and guide direction 

• Conduct in-depth user research to generate actionable insights and guide decision-making 

• Create and iterate prototypes and other design artefacts 

• Integrate offline and online service delivery into coherent end-to-end services 

• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops with a range of stakeholders and partners 

• Evaluate and evidence the impact of service design work

Previous experience in children's services, health, education or related public/third sector contexts is desirable – but if you bring transferable skills, we want to hear from you. 

What You'll Get in Return 

• 26 days annual leave (rising with service) plus bank holidays 

• Access to the Barnardo's pension scheme 

• Flexible working and hybrid/remote options 

• Wellbeing initiatives and Employee Assistance Programme 

• Regular supervision and career development opportunities 

• The opportunity to shape how service design is used across a national organisation 

• The chance to work on services that support children, young people and families across the UK.

Inclusion and Belonging 

We are committed to building a diverse workforce. We particularly welcome applications from disabled candidates, LGBTQ+ people, people from racially minoritised communities, and those with care experience. If there's anything we can do to support you through the application process, please let us know. 

 Ready to Apply?

Together, we can change childhoods and change lives.

When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification and Job Description.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date.  We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.