Description:
Reporting to the Assistant Dean and Director of
Communications and Public Programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design,
the Art Director plays an essential role in directing how the school, its
prolific output of ideas, its values, and its community are communicated to its
many publics. As a member of the Department of Communications, this role shares
the goal of strategizing effective and inventive ways of communicating to
varied global audiences about the GSD’s faculty and students and their respective
research initiatives and practices, showcasing their success and impact in the
context of the wider field of design and ensuring a coherent institutional
identity across a wide array of print and digital media.
In addition to having an exceptional eye for design, it is
vital that the person who fills this position bring a keen interest in and
skillset for developing a visual and strategic continuity across communications
that bear the school’s brand. Toward that end, the Art Director will actively
lead the design of a variety of print and digital projects of different scales,
principally the school’s website but also including external communications for
different offices and departments across the GSD. The Art Director either will
undertake the design work on their own, or, as will often be the case, manage
the work of external vendors to complete it. The Design Manager may also be
called upon to collaborate on editorial projects produced by the Department of
Communications, including Harvard Design
Magazineand its digital channels, for example.
In leading the ongoing design of the school’s website, it is
also vital that the person who fills this position have strong project
management skills and an enthusiasm for collaborating with colleagues of
varying levels of expertise, and be able to translate technical and aesthetic
requirements and other project needs clearly and appropriately. This is
especially true for the school’s website, which is maintained by an in-house
development team and routinely updated with content by a community of editors
located in different offices across the school. The Art Director works closely
with both groups: prioritizing design work for the development team while also
educating the school’s editor community in the site’s capabilities and guiding
forward future design enhancements their needs might inspire. Continuing to
rally these groups in a common direction—and with clear expectations and
quality standards—will be an important ingredient in the Art Director’s success
toward the overall goals of this position.
Lastly, while it is assumed that the most
qualified candidates for this position will be designers and will have a deep
background in graphic design, candidates who have demonstrated success in
leading or otherwise managing the visual design of high-profile communications
projects in an environment of high aesthetic standards are also strongly
encouraged to apply.
TYPICAL DUTIES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Actively produces new and inventive means of communicating
visually how the school, its prolific output of ideas, its values, and its
community are communicated to its many publics.
- Develops a strategy for and ensures continuity in the visual
application of the school’s graphic identity across print and digital communications.
- Directs the ongoing design of the school’s primary website,
collaborating closely with the school’s internal development team to plan and
prioritize design projects into discrete development sprints, while also
collaborating closely with the school’s community of content editors on
design-related challenges, as they emerge.
- Collaborates with other colleagues in the Department of
Communications on the design and/or art direction of content across the GSD’s
public digital channels and with external content partners.
- Cultivates a network of external graphic designers,
developers, and other digital producers to collaborate with on a project basis.
- Leads or consults on design for ad-hoc communications
projects, as assigned.
- Serves as a member of the school’s digital governance
committee and helps maintain the university’s digital accessibility standards.
- Performs other job-related responsibilities as needed