Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Digital Brand Designer
💰 $65,000 - $110,000
🎯 Role Definition
We are hiring a Digital Brand Designer to own and elevate our brand's visual identity across digital channels. The ideal candidate combines strategic brand thinking with expert-level execution in visual design, digital asset production, motion, and cross-functional collaboration. This role will lead creative direction for web, mobile, social, email, digital advertising, and campaign experiences while ensuring consistency with brand guidelines and business objectives.
Key SEO / LLM keywords: Digital Brand Designer, brand design, visual identity, brand guidelines, digital assets, Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, brand strategy, UI/UX, motion design.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Junior Graphic Designer focused on digital and brand work
- Visual Designer or UI Designer with brand exposures
- Marketing Designer or Social Media Designer transitioning to broader brand responsibilities
Advancement To:
- Senior Digital Brand Designer
- Brand Design Lead / Art Director
- Head of Brand / Creative Director
Lateral Moves:
- Product Designer (UX/UI path)
- Motion Designer / Content Design Lead
- Brand Strategist or Marketing Manager
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Lead the creation, evolution, and stewardship of the company's digital visual identity, including typography systems, color palettes, iconography, and imagery guidelines that scale across web, mobile, social, and marketing channels.
- Design and produce high-quality, on-brand digital assets for websites, landing pages, mobile apps, email campaigns, social media, and paid advertising, ensuring pixel-perfect execution and responsiveness.
- Translate brand strategy and business objectives into cohesive visual concepts and campaign-level creative that improve brand awareness, user engagement, and conversion metrics.
- Develop, document, and maintain comprehensive brand guidelines and a digital design system (components, tokens, patterns) that enable consistent application across internal teams and external agencies.
- Partner closely with product managers, UX designers, and front-end engineers to implement designs in Figma/SVG/CSS, ensuring visual fidelity and feasibility across breakpoints and devices.
- Create prototypes and interactive design deliverables (Figma Prototypes, animated mockups) demonstrating motion, micro-interactions, and transitions to communicate intent to engineering and stakeholders.
- Produce motion graphics and short-form video assets for social and campaign use, optimizing for platform specifications and conversion best practices.
- Conduct visual audits of existing digital touchpoints, identify inconsistencies, and drive projects to remediate gaps between current state and target brand standards.
- Lead creative briefs, concepting sessions, and art direction for cross-functional campaigns, aligning creative output with marketing goals, KPIs, and brand voice.
- Manage multiple concurrent projects from concept through delivery, setting realistic timelines, prioritizing work, and communicating status with internal stakeholders.
- Mentor junior designers and contractors, providing constructive feedback, reviewing work for brand compliance, and fostering a high-quality design culture.
- Collaborate with content, marketing, and product teams to ensure visual work supports messaging hierarchy, accessibility standards (WCAG), and SEO best practices.
- Optimize digital assets for performance — file formats, responsive imagery, and load-time considerations — balancing visual fidelity and speed.
- Conduct user-focused visual research and competitive benchmarking to inform creative direction and identify trends in digital brand expression.
- Develop creative templates and modular asset systems for rapid campaign deployment while retaining brand integrity and creative flexibility.
- Present design concepts, rationale, and brand recommendations to leadership and cross-functional teams, using data and user insights to justify design decisions.
- Coordinate with external agencies, photographers, videographers, and freelance creatives to commission photography, motion, and content that align with brand direction.
- Implement and enforce quality control processes for final artwork delivery, including version control, asset naming conventions, and handoff documentation to developers and vendors.
- Drive A/B test design variants with marketing and product analytics teams to measure impact on engagement and conversion, iterating designs based on results.
- Ensure brand assets meet legal and compliance requirements, including correct usage of trademarks, licensed imagery, and proper attribution where required.
- Advocate for brand consistency across all digital touchpoints and contribute to long-term brand strategy planning and roadmaps.
Secondary Functions
- Support ongoing brand education by creating internal brand assets, templates, and workshops to upskill non-design teams in applying brand guidelines.
- Assist marketing with ad-hoc creative requests, seasonal campaigns, and rapid social content production during peak business periods.
- Contribute to cross-functional sprint planning, aligning design deliverables with product and marketing release calendars.
- Help maintain the design system documentation site, updating component examples, usage notes, and code snippets for developers.
- Review analytics and campaign performance to recommend visual optimizations and creative pivot strategies driven by data.
- Participate in recruitment, interview design candidates, and help build a pipeline of freelance and agency partners for overflow capacity.
- Provide technical support during asset integration, troubleshooting visual bugs, and offering quick fixes when time-critical design issues occur.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Expert-level proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere) for visual and motion asset production.
- Advanced proficiency in Figma for interface design, component systems, collaborative prototyping, and developer handoff.
- Strong understanding of responsive design principles, HTML/CSS basics, and how visual decisions translate to front-end implementation.
- Experience building and maintaining design systems, component libraries, and brand pattern libraries.
- Motion design skills including animation principles, Lottie, GIF optimization, and short-form video production for social platforms.
- Typography expertise: type hierarchy, variable fonts, legibility across screens, kerning, and font licensing considerations.
- Knowledge of UX principles and accessibility (WCAG 2.1), ensuring visual designs are inclusive and usable.
- Photography direction and art direction experience: brief creation, moodboards, shoot supervision, and post-production guidance.
- Proficiency in prototyping tools and interaction design to communicate micro-interactions and transitions.
- Familiarity with digital asset management (DAM) systems, file versioning, and export workflows for web and social.
- Analytics interpretation skills: using A/B tests, conversion data, and engagement metrics to inform visual optimizations.
- Experience with CMS and marketing platforms (e.g., WordPress, Webflow, HubSpot, Mailchimp) to design feasible campaign templates.
Soft Skills
- Strong visual storytelling and conceptual thinking ability to turn strategy into creative output.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills tailored to both creative and non-creative audiences.
- Collaborative mindset: proven experience working with cross-functional teams (product, engineering, marketing, content).
- Time management and prioritization skills to handle competing deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Detail-oriented with a high standard for craft, consistency, and quality control.
- Problem-solving and iterative mindset: uses data and feedback to refine design solutions.
- Leadership and mentorship capability to coach junior designers and manage external creative partners.
- Adaptability and comfort with ambiguity, able to balance exploratory creativity with brand constraints.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Interaction Design, Fine Arts, or related field — or equivalent professional experience.
Preferred Education:
- Advanced coursework or certifications in Brand Strategy, Motion Design, UX/UI, or Digital Marketing.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Graphic Design
- Visual Communication
- Interaction Design / UX
- Motion Graphics / Animation
- Marketing or Brand Strategy
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of professional experience in digital brand, visual, or product design roles.
Preferred:
- 5+ years designing digital brand systems, campaign creative, and cross-channel digital assets for consumer or B2B brands.
- Portfolio demonstrating end-to-end brand work: visual identity systems, web and mobile experiences, motion pieces, and campaign case studies.
- Experience working in agile environments and collaborating directly with engineering and marketing teams.