About the organization:
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data organization (ACLED) is a disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping institution. The ACLED team collects conflict information, conducts analysis to describe, explore, and test conflict scenarios, and makes both data and analysis open for free use by the public. ACLED’s work is regularly used to inform journalism, academic research, and public discourse on conflict, and to support practitioners and policymakers. ACLED is the highest quality and most widely used real-time data and analysis source on political violence and protest around the world.
The role:
ACLED is recruiting a full-time Graphic Designer to support graphic design projects, digital content generation, brand management, marketing, and formatting publications. The ideal candidate will have experience with visual communications, an intuitive eye for visual identity, design, illustration, and sourcing compelling editorial images and video clips, along with skills to translate complex data and analysis into digestible visualizations, resources, and other content for diverse audiences and platforms.
This position is entry-level, fully remote, and can be done from any location with reliable internet. The weekly work schedule for this role is flexible (to be determined in agreement with supervisor). For more information, please review the Applicant FAQs. When applying please submit your desired salary range for consideration.
Specific roles and responsibilities:
The Graphic Designer will be responsible for the following tasks:
- Graphic design: As directed by the Associate Multimedia Coordinator, support ACLED’s outreach and user engagement by creating custom designs for social media visuals, infographics, newsletters, and other promotional materials. Input new information into existing infographic templates on a weekly basis. Work with the Web Manager to contribute design ideas for ACLED’s web infrastructure and ensure design and branding coherence across ACLED content. Assist the Research and Analysis teams with designs for data visualization outputs, including creating custom templates for collaborative projects that involve visual storytelling of the data and analysis.
- Publications: Help facilitate layout and design for ACLED analysis and rapid response outputs and come up with new eye-catching yet clean templates for reports, guides, internal policies, and other written materials as required. Inputting new information into existing templates on a weekly basis.
- Brand management, marketing, and outreach: Support the implementation of ACLED’s branding strategy by ensuring adherence to branding guidelines for various creative and written content produced throughout the organization. Assist the Corporate Licensing team with client and donor outreach, including the design and production of brochures, welcome packets, reports, proposals, and other resources as required.
- Management of ACLED’s Digital Library and keeping multimedia guidelines up to date: Maintain the organization of the repository of digital assets in Google Photos and Google Drive and help supply photos or other materials to team members upon request.
- Administrative support: Provide general administrative support to the Head of Communications and Communications Coordinator as needed, as well as ad hoc support to other departments.
Skills and competencies:
To be successful in this role, ACLED seeks applicants who have the following skills and experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in visual communications, graphic design, journalism, or a program that involves the application of digital design; or a degree in the social sciences or humanities fields if self-taught in graphic design (essential)
- Experience with data and quantitative/qualitative research (preferred)
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; fluency in English (essential)
- Fluency in other languages, especially French, Arabic, Portuguese, and/or Spanish (preferred)
- 3–5 years of experience with Adobe Suite programs (essential)
- Specifically InDesign, Illustrator, Premier, Acrobat, and Photoshop
- Experience with visual storytelling, data visualizations, motion graphics, and conceptualizing, designing, and laying out high-quality, innovative, and attention-grabbing materials (print and online) for web-based communications, including infographics, reports, web, and social media campaigns
- Experience with creating digital assets for social media: Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other platforms
- Detail-oriented to ensure all work is accurate and high-quality
- Proficiency or working knowledge in data visualization tools such as Tableau, Flourish, moqups, or QGIS (an advantage)
- Experience in creating animations or illustrations for educational and informational content (an advantage)
- Skills in audiovisual production and editing (an advantage)
- Experience with brand management, adapting content for audiences, working in set templates and/or producing materials for public relations
- Past work with nonprofits or within the research sector (focused on peacebuilding, conflict and demonstrations, human rights, and/or foreign affairs) is an advantage
- Experience with sourcing digital assets such as editorial photography, video clips, motion graphics, icons, etc. (essential)
- Ability to multitask, collaborate with colleagues across departments, and work remotely with limited supervision (essential)
- A knack for taking initiative and presenting new ideas or approaches that amplify the data and analysis that ACLED collects and conducts
- Good judgment, strong organizational and planning skills, and high attention to detail; experience in using Asana or openness to learn
- An ability to meet deadlines and communicate effectively on the status of projects
- Monitor trends and performance on social media to determine opportunities for improvement or campaigns
- A willingness to seek and implement feedback as well as provide constructive feedback to others
- Enthusiasm for strategic communications, experimenting with new designs while following brand guidelines as well as a drive to learn new platforms and tools
How to apply
To apply, please submit a CV, a portfolio of previous digital works, and a cover letter detailing qualifications and experience. The portfolio can be a link to a website or included in the cover letter document. Candidates without a portfolio showcasing their own work will not be considered. Successful candidates will be invited to conduct a graphic design exercise prior to the interview process.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply early through our career portal.