Junior Designer/ Studio Assistant for PKF

PKF is one of the UK's leading firms of accountants and business advisers, which specialises in advising the management of developing private and public businesses. We pride ourselves on creating and sustaining supportive relationships where objective and timely advice enables our clients to thrive and develop.

We have more than 1,500 partners and staff operating from 23 offices around the country; wherever our clients are based, we can offer local expertise backed up by the resources of a national firm

The UK firm is a member of PKF International, a network of independent firms of accountants and business advisers with 430 offices in over 100 countries.

London

With over 40 Partners/Directors and 450 staff it is the largest of PKF's UK offices and offers a full range of services including business advisory, corporate finance, corporate recovery, insolvency, forensic and taxation, with clients that vary in size from start-ups to multinational groups and high net worth individuals.

Our clients benefit from an integrated approach based on understanding the key issues facing small and medium sized businesses. This enables us to meet their needs at each stage of development and allows them to focus on building the value of their business.

Business Development

The business development (BD) department plays a pivotal role in shaping and driving the Firm’s growth. It is responsible for all sector and service line business development campaigns, tenders, client service reviews, e-communications, PR and features an in-house design team.

Purpose of the role

A fully competent design studio administrative resource and junior designer. Handles incoming jobs, queries, and all other information. Organises studio schedule and workflow. Responsible for ongoing admin tasks. Takes on simple design, typesetting and artwork amending as/when available.

Principal duties
• To create accurate design industry-standard artwork that best addresses the design solution to agreed deadlines and budgets on a broad range of materials for print, electronic and web.
• To receive and understand a brief and be able to re-interpret that brief visually.
• To follow the art direction of the Design Manager and conform all designs to the overarching corporate look and feel.
• To perform own design project management tasks; ie record-keeping; advising requestors/suppliers on timings; requesting and providing cost estimates, purchase orders and sign-offs to spend;
• To continually communicate with requestors/suppliers on progress and changes; to receive final sign-off from requestor and achieve agreed delivery of materials.
• To handle all phone and email queries, requests and other messages from around the firm and from suppliers
• To understand the requestor’s requirements and agree with them the production schedule. To work the project into the studio schedule
• To establish new jobs; set up new job files and job bags ready for designers; fetch previous artwork to be used as references; close and archive finished jobs
• Proactively to keep the Design Manager and other team members up to date on new requests, changes to ongoing jobs and other matters as they emerge
• Proactively to keep requestors and suppliers up to date on progress; chase people as/when necessary
• To receive and check all forms, text content, design assets, etc, from various sources
• To fulfil ad hoc requests for additional copies of artwork, reprints, etc

Person Specification

Experience / Key Competencies
• Excellent organisational skills coupled with proactive and confident professional communication skills
• Full understanding of design briefs, the design process, and fluency in ‘design lingo’
• A good understanding of print processes, website production, and design/imagery file types
• Junior-level proficiency in all Adobe Creative Suite components (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator), Acrobat. Mac OSX and PC Windows platform experience is required
• Comprehensive, practical and up-to-date knowledge of the design processes, print production and website technology
• Strong awareness of current trends in contemporary design and the best of corporate design
• Clear, appropriate and informed creative judgement – good taste
• Willingness to balance design integrity versus the immediate needs of delivery
• Excellent grammar, spelling and punctuation skills
• Ability to work accurately under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Proactive, positive, team-oriented and enthusiastic approach to design work
• Ability to create and sustain productive working relationships with full spectrum of colleagues and suppliers
• Interest in corporate design and pride in keeping the wheels of a studio turning
• Accuracy and attention to detail
Desirable skills
• Flexible, adaptable and eager to extend range of skills
• Diverse and active interest across the Arts
• Ability to write/subedit copy, straplines, subheads, captions, etc in the context of designed pieces and campaigns
• Understanding of basic Mac tech support from a user’s perspective and willingness to undertake simple ad hoc maintenance
• Understanding of the commercial aspects of corporate marketing and business development

Education / Qualifications
• Minimum qualification of a Bachelors Degree in Design, Visual Art or Graphic art is ideal; and/or 3+ full years of studio administration and junior-level design in a relevant environment.