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Career Opportunities at Graphic D-Signs, Inc.
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Helpful Hints from the Staff:
- Do not use Times, Times New Roman, Helvetica or any other standard, run-of-the mill fonts in your resume. You're supposed to be a designer and you probably have hundreds to choose from!
- Use of Brush Script, Commercial Script, or any other horrible scripts in portfolio pieces will automatically disqualify you.
- Cutting and pasting the cover letter you sent to the last 20 jobs you also applied for is also automatic grounds for disqualification. If you can't bother to write something fresh for us, it already tells us you're not very creative. And since we're asking you not to do it, it also tells us you have trouble following directions.
- If you spell QuarkXPress wrong, that's not a good sign, especially since we're spelling it correctly here.
- Saying in a cover letter how great you think our work is scores extra points, on the contrary, putting down any of our work will not make you look good. Our egos bruise easily.
- Knowing obscure movie quotes, such as "So I got that going for me," and/or TV trivia, like who Art Vandelay is, will score you extra points.
- Napoleon Dynamite knowledge a must. It's Summer all year long here, if you know what we mean. And if you don't know if the chickens have large talons - well, that's going to be a problem.
- No one here is a prima donna. If you can't deal with occasionally scanning & retouching photos for a few hours, you're not going to like it here.
- Read Dan's books. He likes that when you mention you've read 'em. Or that you've heard of him before. But really, his ego is not that big. As far as you know.
- Did we mention we hate Brush Script?
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We're currently seeking to fill a mid-level designer/project manager position to work at our award-winning agency.
Here are some core requirements of our dream candidate. Yes, there are many hats to wear in this position.
- 2-5 years in an agency environment, preferably a small agency, that deals with small businesses
- BFA/BA in Art/Communications with a great portfolio
- Ability to work directly with clients and translate their needs into design solutions. This requires an understanding of marketing, and small business advertising
- Communicates effectively with clients to identify needs and evaluate alternative business solutions
- Ability to attend sales meetings and pitches and draft proposals
- Attention to detail (an insane amount- you will be working on numerous projects at any given time)
- Demonstrated ability to work in both print and web
- Forward thinking, and big-picture understanding of the company, and direction it is going, providing leadership and proactive initiatives
- Manages day-to-day client interaction
- Sets and manages client expectations
- Continually seeks opportunities to increase customer satisfaction and deepen client relationships
- Builds a knowledge base of each client’s business, organization and objectives
- Evaluate projects/results upon completion. Identify key factors that were positive and negative to the project so they can be used/avoided in the future
- Clear understanding of the printing process
- Good sense of humor, and ability to get along well with other team members
Here is the basic job description (although its written in HTML, not stone):
- Design of print materials, including brochures, print ads and stationery. Prepping those files for printing, and handling print orders, and subsequent reorders
- Layout and design of web sites, content loading, and project management
- Keep projects organized and follow-through on all communications
- Work with the client to make sure there is a balance on what they want, and what they need
- Manage and maintain our own site (it's big and unruly, but thankfully being redesigned as we speak), plus our 3 subsidiary sites.
- Perform web site edits- text changes, scanning and re-touching Photos, Swapping Photos in Galleries/Headers
- Managing web site edits and/or printing projects, client correspondence including: discussion of work, billing and follow-up
- Designing and editing e-mail marketing templates. Working in Constant Contact, translating clients needs into appropriate marketing material. Running email campaigns on a monthly basis
- Attend sales meetings and pitches. Forward-thinking ability to recognize areas of growth for the company, and implement strategies to help expand the company.
Software Skills:
- Adobe CS3 and/or CS4 (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash) (Required)
- Freehand MX and QuarkXPress v6 + (Preferred, at least to Dan it is. It's not dead yet, okay?)
- CSS and HTML Knowledge. Hand coding, even better. Building tableless is a big plus.
- SEO knowledge and understanding
- Striped bass fishing skills. Okay maybe that one is optional.
What do we have to offer? Full time employees enjoy a competitive salary, holidays, 401k plan (with a company match even!), health and dental, couple of weeks of vacation time, summer Fridays and hot bagels every Thursday. The usual stuff, or maybe not so usual depending on which agency factory environment you're coming from. We even have direct deposit (sweet!). We try not to run a sweatshop either. Sometimes we get busy, but we're not paying you for 40 hours and expecting you to work 60. Pretty much 9-5ish, except for Dan, who seemingly works round the clock, except in the spring and summer when the striped bass are running and he's training like a lunatic on his bike.
What should you do next? Doing something creative always helps. If you really like what we do, our best advice would be to do something cool for us. It helps get your resume and work noticed, which is sometimes tough to do amidst the competition. Portfolio pieces employing Brush Script, Helvetica and even Trajan are not, however, head turners (hint, hint). Comic Sans, of course, is making a comeback, so that's OK. Didn't you get the memo?
Send resumes (PDFs)
and relevant samples (PDFs or links), and salary requirements to: jobs@graphicd-signs.com. Equally impressive would be your ability to actually MAIL us a nice cover letter (see above about what NOT to do in your cover letter) and a resume. We will try, at a minimum to acknowledge receipt of your application.
DO NOT CALL. Calling will only serve to aggravate Dan, who spends most of his day on the phone already. If you only work on PCs do not send a resume. We all own stock in Apple. Seriously. And please buy the new iPhone also, if you haven't already. So what if the antenna doesn't work? Like that even matters....
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