We are no longer accepting applications for this position.

Location: Flexible

Please apply by Friday, September 18 to ensure that we see your application.

The Marshall Project seeks a Product Designer to join our growing product team. As a designer at The Marshall Project, you will work with the Director of Product to elevate our award-winning journalism through visual storytelling, communicate the value of our newsroom's work, and engage our audiences by improving our product offerings.

There is no single ideal lab-designed candidate. We like complex people with unique backgrounds and a diverse set of strengths. You may be a print designer by training who pivoted to digital storytelling. You may be a creative technologist who enjoys dreaming up designs and also building them. You may be a journalist who parlayed their love of words into a passion for typography and information architecture.

You probably have at least two years of experience building digital products with teams, but maybe you've found your own way (freelancing? side projects?) to build a strong portfolio that proves you can pull your weight.

Research shows that underrepresented applicants tend to downplay their qualifications. What's more important to us than a number are the experiences you've had and the expertise you've developed. This is not an entry-level position, and we are looking for someone with practical and practiced skills. However, whether you have 4+ years, or only 2 years of non-traditional working experience, if you think you'd be a good fit, please apply.

Requirements:

• A strong portfolio demonstrating ability to solve design problems, develop complex and creative UX solutions, extraordinary capacity for visual design and information architecture, and the ability to articulate your process.

• An understanding of layout, typography, and design systems

• Proficiency with design and prototyping software like Sketch, Illustrator, Figma, Framer, and/or InVision

• A commitment to building an inclusive and thoughtful workplace

We'd be particularly delighted to hire someone who has:

• Deep knowledge of current web, design, and online journalism trends

• Demonstrated digital news design experience, or abiding interest in news and storytelling

• Interest in the criminal justice system, including personal or family experience of incarceration

• Comfort with HTML/CSS/Javascript

• Experience hiring, art directing, and communicating with freelancers

• Data visualization chops

• The ability to conduct user research and/or use data to inform design decisions

• Good writing skills

• Facility with design systems

If you don’t have this exact combination of skills, that’s fine. Let us know what your strengths are, and tell us about other skills you have that we didn’t ask about that you think will help our newsroom’s efforts.

Most importantly, you:

• Are curious, thoughtful, and critical

• Excel at collaborating with people with a wide range of talents

• Enjoy learning and teaching in equal measure

• Understand what makes good stories tick

• Have informed opinions on aesthetic design, and a willingness to both take feedback and advocate for design integrity

• Are comfortable taking on ownership and responsibility

• Understanding how qualitative research and data inform product and design decisions

• Consider all parts of the experience when designing, from copy to visuals to user experience to business model

Typical examples of what your work might look like:

• Develop reusable story templates for Southside, a collection of stories about criminal justice in Chicago

• Brainstorm ways to improve The Record, our encyclopedic resource of criminal justice journalism across the web, to better reach an audience of people who are new to the subject.

• Develop a design treatment for a data story on the myth of the criminal immigrant.

• Design a reusable slideshow component that our reporters can use to enhance their stories.

• Commission an illustration for a first-person story by someone personally affected by the criminal justice system in our recurring Life Inside series.

• Find the best way to render a heartbreaking feature story about restorative justice visually.

• Lay out an issue of News Inside, our award-winning, print publication, which is distributed in hundreds of prisons and jails across the United States.

• Build a groundbreaking immersive editorial project on the U.S. immigration system.

Just a few of the wonderful people you will work with:

Elan Kiderman: Director of Product, your humble manager, perfect human, and the person who wrote this job listing.

Celina Fang: Senior Multimedia Editor who hires and manages all story artwork and will ask you how you are doing every day without fail.

Gabe Isman: Director of Technology, who manages to get everything done with minimal help and somehow still has time to bake bread.

Katie Park: Developer on paper, but also designer, reporter, musician. What can't she do?

Emily Kassie: Director of Visual Projects (i.e. longform immersive investigative pieces), an absurdly impressive Emmy and Peabody nominated investigative journalist and filmmaker.

Lawrence Bartley: Director of News Inside, reaches people behind bars and will tear down every wall on his way there.

Ruth Baldwin: Director of Communications & Strategy, seems to know every media person in the world and will make sure your work gets seen by as many eyeballs as possible.

David Eads: Data Editor, newest member of The Marshall Project family, along with the rest of the data team—Anna, Tom, Weihua, and Andrew—who are always in the mood to collaborate.

A list of brilliant reporters, editors, and business staff that is too long to recite here.

WHO WE ARE

The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering America’s criminal justice system. In 2016, The Marshall Project was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It has also been honored with the prestigious World’s Best award from the Society for News Design and the Best Website Ellie from the American Society of Magazine Editors.

We are an equal opportunity employer that welcomes qualified applicants of all races, ethnicities, physical abilities, genders and sexual orientations, including people who have been incarcerated.

To apply, use this form to send a cover letter, resume and portfolio of work.