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Interactive Designer (Full Time) | Alright Studio

Disclaimer: Listings reflect client inquiries verbatim for accuracy and clarity.

This is an at-will, full-time role. Alright Studio is a seeking a versatile, organized, and upbeat individual to be an integral voice in our growing Design Department.

👉 Please send resume, credentials, and any relevant context to jobs@alright.studio with the subject line “Interactive Designer

Company Background

Alright Studio is a deliberate and dynamic, full-service creative and technology agency, based in Brooklyn, NY. The Studio is comprised of three interdisciplinary partners, spanning strategy, design, and technology, as well as a small rotating staff.  We built the studio out of our own disillusionment with the global creative landscape — bloated budgets, inexperienced people, and work that didn’t solve any problems beyond looking great in the portfolio of Agency X. We pride ourselves on our ability to make best-in-class work for any sort of client: Big or small, established or upstart, commercial or otherwise. No house style, nor an allegiance to medium or method — meaning we can do it all, have done it all, and enjoy evolving our work from project to project. We scale up when we need to and otherwise function as an extension of your business, rather than a hired gun. Execution and aesthetics exist in harmony for us; if it’s not functional it’s not beautiful and vice versa. With every project we bring craft, communication, integrity, and meticulousness. And with the business itself, we strive for transparency, comfort, clarity, and a healthy work-life balance.

Team Structure

Our Studio is both small and big. We are a core staff of 9, with a rotating group of 10-15 people who support daily operations, individual projects, and our clients directly. We think of our team as a network of highly specialized people, crossing disciplines and competencies. This approach gives us the ability to offer thoughtful, bespoke brand development, grounded in the highly researched thinking of a big agency, enhanced and supported by the attention-to-detail of a small studio.

As a company, we understand a diverse team with different points of view can only be beneficial to our collective output, and are committed to providing opportunities to underrepresented individuals.

The Role

Job Title: Interactive Designer

Reports to: Garrett DeRossett (Partner)

Organizational Context: The organizational context, and expectation, for the Interactive Designer role at Alright Studio is that the staff member will work 40-hours per week – fulfilling the role as it is laid-out in the subsequent, bulleted expectations.

Relevant Experience: 3-5 years working in a creative role (agency or freelance), ideally across a variety of screen- and technology-based design outputs.

Design is the contextualization, visualization, and expression of strategic thinking. We execute smart and surprising concepts that span medium and category. Informed by research and writing, our design department is focused on imparting meaning into our work — creating narrative-driven solutions that add significance to the lives of those who experience them. Our method intentionally gets our clients outside their comfort zones, in service of ideas and experiences that bring people together and compel them to think more deeply. 

Interactive and web design is a core and crucial component of Alright, a version of which is included in virtually every client engagement. Our digital design sensibility is both artistic and meticulous, translating client objectives into functional story devices within beautiful, boundary-pushing interactive experiences.

We run several projects at once at the Studio, and the expectation is that the Interactive Designer would be able to support the range. Working in lock-step with Alright’s Strategy department and Creative Director, you’ll be expected to bring a systems-based, exploratory, and motivated point-of-view to the table that pushes forward culture and client alike.

Requirements

  • 3 – 5 years agency or in-house experience in a fast-paced design environment (independent freelance or small studio background is a plus)
  • Experience across a broad variety of digital and interactive design disciplines, with focus on e-commerce, design systems, and responsive interfaces
  • Expert organizational and research ability across the planning and requirements phase of a project lifecycle — able to illustrate objectives, requirements, and goals via content maps, flowcharts, and wireframes
  • Expert proficiency in Figma, Adobe suite, Notion, Dropbox, and Google Docs / Slides / Sheets
  • Adept prototyping ability in Figma and/or similar
  • Working understanding of motion design principles and interaction (After Effects / Premiere / etc experience a plus but not required)
  • Intimate understanding of the development process and how it relates to design (development / engineering ability a plus but not required)
  • Excellent grasp on communication and presentation in both face-to-face and virtual situations
  • Ability to write top-line copy and explain your ideas clearly and coherently
  • Expertise and familiarity with the QA process — ability to test, troubleshoot, and identify bugs as well as provide solutions and design-based fixes in the moment

About you:

You are a detail-oriented and highly tactile designer, fueled by experimentation and a love of putting the right things in the right places. You are comfortable starting from a blank page as well as reacting to and following specific direction. You understand the fine line between art and science, and are sensitive to work quality while also prioritizing success metrics. You can marry strategy with visuals and function, understanding all work together in harmony. You’re a craftsman, focusing on the detailed foundations of language, form, type, interaction, and space, as well as a sponge — eager to learn and grow within the context of the studio, bringing new perspectives and future-forward ideas to the table.

You are a well-rounded individual beyond the job description: grammar, writing, and speaking skills are all critical parts of your day to day. The ability to back up your decisions with confidence comes second nature, but you don’t pull extraneous rationale out of thin air. You understand that the how’s and why’s of the work is just as important as the work itself, and can construct a coherent and consistent narrative around it. You see content and client objectives as opportunities and consistently look for unique ways to elevate features that may seem innocuous. You can shift, grow, and evolve with each new situation — you can make a killer deck, but you don’t read from it verbatim.

You are empathetic and considerate, and are comfortable interacting with clients, freelancers, developers, and vendors. You are organized, clear, and able to prioritize. You can be a pixel perfectionist but can also see the larger picture. You can manage your own time and schedule but are also a team player — we don’t work in a vacuum and your coworkers will have dependencies and unique perspectives.

Operational Responsibilities:

  • Support Creative Director and Partners to deliver functional, creative, and intentional branded design experiences across a variety of devices and applications
  • Structure at a foundational level the necessities of a successful web project — writing content maps, entering and QA’ing content and design, preparing handoff files, etc.
  • Design creative experiences and interactive systems that are both grounded in practical needs as well as pushing the envelope creatively, all wrapped up in a solid foundation of strategy and reasoning
  • Formally stress-test work via animated prototypes, user testing, etc.
  • Engage with developers and vendors to explain, implement, and QA
  • Create flexible, dynamic, and scalable design systems and extensions, defining consistency via hierarchy, considered layout, grids, and typography
  • Work collaboratively with designers, strategists, and developers to execute considered work at a molecular, detailed level
  • Have a creative opinion and personal sense of taste and style
  • Research and look to others — both in our industry and out — for inspiration and reference
  • Push beyond feedback at face value, instead isolating the foundational reason behind it so as to better solve the problem
  • Present work with confidence and empathy and clearly explain decisions to clients
  • Participate in internal projects and exercises, i.e. company swag, portfolio website, etc.

Perks, Benefits, and Salary

Salary: $65,000-$85,000 (based on qualifications and experience)

Paid Time Off:

Our vacation policy is, technically, unlimited. Meaning, we are not tracking how many days you take off and you can, technically, take as many vacation days as you would like throughout a calendar year. This, of course, is a somewhat divisive policy in that, classically, people take less vacation when there is an unlimited vacation policy. Thus, we strongly encourage you to take a minimum of 2-weeks off throughout the year.

We also have a number of holidays and mandated studio closures to complement our vacation policy. Listed below, in detail. In total, these amount to ~2-months of paid time-off.

Bank Holidays / Studio Closures:

  • Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
  • Memorial Day ( + Friday before)
  • Juneteenth
  • Fourth of July (+ flex days before / after)
  • Labor Day (+ Friday before, if not coinciding with “Summer Break”)
  • “Summer Break” (typically last 2-weeks of August, surrounding Labor Day. Dates can be flexible – though the flex applies to the entire Studio, not an individual’s holiday time)
  • Indigenous Peoples’ Day
  • Veterans’ Day
  • “Thanksgiving Break” (the Studio is closed for the week of Thanksgiving)
  • “Winter Break” (the Studio closes for the last two weeks of the year)

Paid Family Leave:

Such as it currently stands, Alright Studio’s Family Leave Policy is detailed below. Our goal is to remain fair and competitive, while also accounting for team size and structure.

  • 100% of employees’ average weekly wage for 12 consecutive weeks. Start of the 12-weeks to be taken at the discretion of the employee
  • Discretionary part-time availability – with accordant pay – and work from home optionality for 24 consecutive weeks, following the initial 12 weeks
  • Alternatively, up to 24 non-paying weeks of sabbatical following initial 12 -weeks of leave (i.e. no pay, but job and title is guaranteed for 6-months)

Bonuses & Profit Sharing:

The Studio offers an annual bonus of up to 5% of total gross salary, ****to be paid out at end of the calendar year.

Insurance & Mental Health Contribution:

The Studio offers to pay $350 per month for standard health care, 75% of dental and vision coverage costs, and $2,500 per year given as a mental health reimbursement, amortized by paycheck – totaling ~$6,850 per year.

As team size or billings change, we may revisit this.

401k Plan

The Studio offers a Traditional and Roth 401k plan through 401Go, a simple platform that integrates directly with our payroll provider, Justworks.

Employees are able to contribute a discretionary pre-tax amount per paycheck. Or opt-out entirely. The Studio provides a 3.5% annual match on gross contributions.

Additional Perks & Benefits:

Further perks and benefits that Alright Studio is willing to offer to the employee.

  • Commuter Benefits in accordance with what is offered by the City of New York, offered directly through Justworks.
  • Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Account, offered directly through Justworks.
  • The Company offers memberships with the below services via Justworks:
    • HealthAdvocate, One Medical, Teladoc, TalkSpace, KindBody
  • The Company will pay for the entirety of employee’s Adobe Creative Cloud and Studio-connected Figma plans.
  • The Company is offering a referral fee on any projects brought into, and won, by the Studio. For projects with budgets between $35-$50,000 the fee would be $500-$1,000; for projects between $50-$100,000 the fee would be $1,000-$1,500; and for projects over $100,000 the fee would be $2,500.
  • The Company allows continued freelance work to occur, outside of the Studio’s time and resources. We mandate that your freelance practice cannot interfere with our daily operations, or our client base. We may offer to connect you with an ongoing client of the Studio’s, but unless otherwise noted you are not permitted to work for or with a client of the Studio’s for 1-calendar year following our engagement with said client.