Digital designer

Job Description

About Community Arts by ZK

Community Arts by ZK (CAZK) (https://www.communityartsbyzk.co.uk/) is an award-winning community interest company based in Pendle. At CAZK, we use art as a driving force to bring communities together from different age ranges, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, with a strong emphasis on community cohesion, integration and wellbeing. We design and deliver art projects, activities, and workshops that value, encourage and engage people in the community, allowing them to express themselves more effectively and communicate their ideas in a creative way. Our workshops and projects cover a broad range of techniques, and we work with creative practitioners and artists from across the world and from a variety of creative disciplines. Examples include fine art, mixed media, photography, traditional and contemporary methods, textiles, environmental artists, installation, and sculpture.

- Location: Community Arts by ZK headquarters, Northlight Estates, Northlight Parade, Brierfield, Nelson, BB5 9EG

- Hours: 22.5 hours per week (Fixed term contract to Sept 2026 with potential to extend subject to funding)

- Pension: Workplace pension scheme with employer contribution

- Salary: £23,000 pro rata

What we are looking for:

Community Arts by ZK (CAZK), based at Northlight Estates, Brierfield, is looking to recruit a Digital Designer. As an arts organisation, we want someone with a contemporary eye for design including an awareness of current trends on social media. If this candidate had a good understanding of how a professional art organisation/gallery/museum present themselves online aesthetically (in terms of social media/website/archive design), this would be favourable.

Project:

As we look to launch our incredibly exciting and unique three-year creative heritage project, ‘Healing Arts for All’ (HAFA), we need a Digital Designer as a key member of our team.

This is an incredibly exciting and rare artistic opportunity to work on a creative heritage project of national importance. HAFA seeks to explore and engage the multicultural community of Pendle in the heritage of their post-industrial local area. Within the project there will be a particular focus on Brierfield Mill, a renovated Grade 2 listed former cotton mill. We will be exploring both what life was like in Lancashire’s industrial era, and how this shaped Pendle and its residents today to create an archive made up of historical content and innovative artworks.

This will be achieved through a series of twelve different artistic programmes (or ‘phases’), each twelve weeks long. We want to make this an empowering, community-led project for participants, who are effectively reclaiming power as the ones writing history, making sure that their story is told. Here, the undocumented, unheard voices and stories of the South Asian community will be important to understand their contribution to Pendle during the textile revolution.

The Digital Designer will be responsible for managing communications in relation to the project (posters, social media, project branding etc), design branding/icons for the online archive of the project (however the website will be designed by a freelance Web Designer) and manage the digitisation of the material for the archive. The Digital Designer will be responsible for overseeing the archive, and training volunteers how to upload and catalogue material on the website. The Digital Designer will support Creative Practitioners with all digital design for each phase (video editing, app design, digital collaging, how to design for book-making etc).

This archive will contain photographs, historical records, oral records, artworks such as textiles, mixed media collages etc that have been collected throughout the project. This archive is one of the primary products of this 3-year project: it will fill a gap in current archive information, as there is little known about the lives of the South Asian community and their work during the industrial period in Lancashire.

On one of the 11 artistic programmes that will run across the HAFA we will be employing an artist in residence specialising in digital art. The Digital Designer may also be responsible for designing how the digital art gets hosted online.

Experience:

5 years minimum of Digital design experience.
Experience working as a Digital Designer for an organisation.
Relevant qualification in digital design. (BA Hons Degree).
You must have experience creating and managing an archive website.
Contemporary eye for design.
Delivering high-quality graphic design, managing projects from initial concept through to completion.
Excellent IT skills, especially with design and photo-editing software.
Thorough knowledge of the Adobe package.
Thorough knowledge of InDesign.
Thorough knowledge of how to use an Apple Mac.
Web Designer experience and have experience working on the Wix platform.
Strong written skills.
Ability to work as part of a team as well as independently.
Exceptional creativity and innovation.
Excellent time management and organisational skills.
Accuracy and attention to detail.
An understanding of the latest social media trends and their role within a commercial environment.
Professional approach to time and deadlines.

Desirable:

Videography experience.
MA in Graphic Design.
Ability to work with a diverse range of people from a variety of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds/experience of working with communities.
Interest in working with a creative organisation.
Interest in heritage.

Outputs:

Responsible for managing marketing communications in relation to the project (pitching design ideas to the team and taking on their feedback in terms of the website, posters, social media templates, project branding etc),
Working with the local community/participants to design and manage the online archive of the project.

How to apply:

Submit a one-page (maximum) expression of interest highlighting why you are interested in this role as Digital Designer and include your CV.
A portfolio of previous work with relevant links.
Submit Expression of Interest and portfolio to info@communityartsbyzk.co.uk.

Deadline for applications: 22nd July with interviews on the 25th July.