Your New Role... CNN's global Visuals team is looking for a senior designer who can shape distinctive, intuitive and visually compelling digital journalism. This role will focus on story design and user experience across a wide range of formats, from quick-turn news moments to medium- and long-term enterprise projects.
You will collaborate with reporters, editors, developers, data journalists and other designers to determine how stories should be structured, presented and experienced by audiences. You should be as comfortable developing a clear visual system for a breaking news explainer as you are designing a deeply reported interactive feature or a reusable approach for ongoing coverage.
The strongest candidates will bring excellent visual taste, a reader-first mindset and an ability to simplify complex information. You will help CNN's Visuals team raise the quality and consistency of our storytelling while continuing to experiment with new formats and approaches.
Your Role Accountabilities...
- Lead the visual and UX design of digital stories across breaking news, daily coverage and medium- to long-term enterprise projects.
- Work closely with editors, reporters and developers to identify the strongest structure, hierarchy and visual approach for each story.
- Design story experiences that integrate text, graphics, maps, video, photography, illustration, audio, motion and interactive elements where appropriate.
- Develop clear wireframes, prototypes, design systems and polished visual treatments for custom storytelling projects.
- Create thoughtful approaches for presenting complex information across mobile, desktop and other platforms.
- Contribute to quick-turn coverage by developing clear, effective and visually distinctive treatments on deadline.
- Collaborate with developers to ensure that designs are responsive, accessible, performant and feasible within project timelines.
- Identify opportunities to improve reusable design patterns, templates and workflows across CNN's visual journalism.
- Help adapt visual stories and graphics for home screens, apps and off-platform distribution.
- Participate in editorial brainstorming and bring forward original ideas for visual storytelling.
- Share design feedback, document approaches and support a strong culture of craft and collaboration across the Visuals team.
Qualifications & Experience... - At least 7 years of experience in digital design, product design, editorial design, visual journalism or a comparable creative environment.
- A strong portfolio demonstrating excellent story design, UX judgment, information hierarchy and visual craft across a range of formats.
- Experience designing digital experiences for mobile and desktop audiences.
- Strong understanding of typography, layout, interaction design, responsive design and accessibility.
- Familiarity with HTML, CSS, motion design, illustration or design systems is a plus.
- Experience working collaboratively with editors, reporters, developers and other designers from initial concept through publication.
- Ability to balance fast-turn assignments with more ambitious medium- and long-term projects.
- A reader-first mindset and an ability to make complex stories clear, intuitive and engaging.
- Comfort creating wireframes, prototypes and polished designs using tools such as Figma, Adobe Creative Suite or similar platforms.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to explain design decisions clearly and constructively.
- Familiarity with data visualization, news graphics, interactive storytelling or newsroom workflows is strongly preferred.
- Experience designing election results experiences, live news products or other complex data-driven storytelling (or an interest in shaping clear, intuitive election coverage for audiences) is a plus.
If you don't have every one of these skills, that's OK. We want to hear from candidates who are passionate about this work and eager to bring their unique perspective and experience to the role.
