Brand Design Lead

City Cast is seeking a Brand Design Lead to lead the visual expression of City Cast across our growing network of local media outlets, with a particular focus on brand consistency, revenue storytelling, campaign marketing, and sales enablement.

This person will be the owner of City Cast's internal and external design standards — helping our Marketing, Revenue, Editorial, Membership, and local city teams show up with a clear, cohesive, polished brand across every touchpoint.

The ideal candidate is a strong, fast, strategic designer who can move fluidly between big-picture brand stewardship and hands-on execution. They should be able to design a high-impact media kit, build a seller-facing one-pager, create campaign marketing assets, concept membership campaign themes, refine design templates for local teams, and ensure every piece of creative ladders up to a consistent City Cast story.

This person will also manage the design request process, serve as the final approver for branded materials, and oversee a Production Designer and a small bench of freelance or contract designers when additional executional support is needed. They will also work to evolve the brand, connect to messaging, and help us stay on top of emerging trends.

Deadline to apply: July 31, 2026

What You'll Do

Brand Leadership & Creative Stewardship

• Own and uphold City Cast's visual brand standards across national, local, editorial, marketing, membership, revenue, event, and digital channels
• Serve as the final design approver for materials that represent City Cast externally or across multiple markets, in line with leadership-set brand guidelines
• Ensure City Cast shows up consistently across all audience and partner touchpoints while still allowing for local personality and flexibility
• Translate City Cast's brand strategy into clear, usable design systems, templates, and creative guidance
• Partner with leadership and City Cast contractors to evolve visual identity as the company grows

Revenue, Sales & GTM Design

• Own the design and ongoing maintenance of City Cast's sales materials, including media kits, pitch decks, one-pagers, sponsorship materials, GTM collateral, case studies, and partner-facing presentations
• Help sellers tell a clearer, more compelling City Cast story to advertisers, sponsors, and potential partners
• Create scalable sales enablement materials that make it easier for the Revenue team to package, pitch, and sell City Cast's products
• Collaborate with Revenue, Marketing, and leadership to turn audience insights, campaign concepts, and sponsorship opportunities into polished, externally facing materials
• Build materials that connect City Cast's audience, local credibility, and product offerings into a cohesive partner narrative

Campaign & Marketing Design

• Under the leadership of the Chief Creative Officer and Director of Marketing, guide and set the vision of marketing campaigns across email, social, web, events, membership, paid media, video, swag, and partner channels
• Create campaign toolkits that can be adapted across multiple cities while maintaining brand consistency
• Support tentpole campaigns, audience growth initiatives, membership pushes, live events, and local market activations
• Move quickly from concept to execution while maintaining strong design judgment and quality control
• Partner with Marketing and Editorial teams to ensure campaigns feel cohesive across channels

Templates, Systems & Workflow

• Guide the production of reusable templates, toolkits, and design systems for internal teams
• Create self-serve systems that allow local teams to execute common design needs without compromising brand quality
• Own the intake, prioritization, and workflow for design requests across departments
• Help clarify project scope, timelines, and deliverables with non-design stakeholders
• Identify when work should be handled directly, delegated to a contractor, or converted into a repeatable template

Contractor & Resource Management

• Manage a small bench of freelance or contract designers as needed
• Scope projects clearly for contractors and ensure work meets City Cast's brand standards
• Review, revise, and approve contractor work before sharing it with internal or external stakeholders
• Balance speed, quality, and capacity across multiple competing requests

Requirements

What You Bring

• 6+ years of professional design experience, ideally with experience in brand systems, marketing design, sales collateral, media, publishing, or mission-driven consumer brands
• A strong portfolio showing excellent taste, visual storytelling, typography, layout, brand consistency, and multi-channel design execution
• Experience creating sales enablement, pitch decks, GTM, media kits, or partner-facing materials
• Strong understanding of how design supports business goals, including audience growth, revenue, brand trust, and partner storytelling
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate design and brand goals to non-design stakeholders, and give clear feedback to contractors and collaborators
• Experience working with brand systems and adapting creative across multiple formats, markets, or sub-brands
• Ability to move quickly without sacrificing clarity, quality, or consistency
• Confidence serving as a brand gatekeeper while remaining collaborative, flexible, and solutions-oriented
• Experience managing design workflows, request systems, templates, and asset libraries
• Comfort working across tools such as Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Canva, Google Slides, and template-based workflows
• Good judgment, diplomacy, and the ability to push back thoughtfully when priorities, scope, or timelines need clarification

Portfolio Requirements

Please include a portfolio link with examples that demonstrate:

• Brand system work or examples of how to adapt a brand across multiple channels
• Sales, pitch, GTM, media kit, campaign, or partner-facing materials
• Multi-format design execution across digital, social, email, web, presentation, or event materials
• At least one example that shows how you translated a business or marketing goal into a clear visual system or campaign

Preferred Experience

• Experience working in media, publishing, audio, local journalism, entertainment, or a multi-market brand
• Experience designing for revenue teams, sponsorship teams, advertisers, or B2B partnerships
• Experience creating high-quality Google Slides or pitch decks for executives, sellers, or external partners
• Experience managing freelancers, contractors, or outside creative partners
• Experience building templates or self-serve design systems for non-design teams

Benefits

This position is full-time and remote, with excellent benefits. The salary range is $95,000-$110,000 depending on experience. City Cast is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity, which involves attracting talented people from diverse backgrounds and traditions. Read about our mission and core values here. We encourage everyone to apply.

About City Cast: We're a network of one-of-a-kind, daily local news podcasts in cities around the country, accompanied by a daily email newsletter and website that keeps you in the know about what's happening in your community. Currently available in Chicago, DC, Denver, Las Vegas, Madison, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Salt Lake, Seattle, and Twin Cities, City Cast is the smartest, easiest way to connect with the place you live and love.

City Cast is an affiliate of Graham Holdings. Read the Graham Holdings Company California Worker Privacy Statement here.