Artist / Motion Graphics Animator for Infographic Videos & Educational Resources

Application deadline

Please note the deadline for applications is midnight Friday 5th April 2024.

About us

Here at Cognito, we create educational resources for secondary school science and maths students. We currently have a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Cognitoedu) and a revision platform (https://cognitoedu.org), both of which are used by hundreds of thousands of students. We're on a mission to redefine what people expect from educational resources, and are looking to hire an exceptional artist to help us create the visuals for our website, as well as our signature video lessons.

Please be aware that due to the volume of applications we receive, we are unable to provide any feedback for any candidate who does not pass both parts of the initial application task. We apologise for this in advance.

Job summary

This post is fully remote, and offered on a full-time basis (37.5 hours per week). Our typical working hours are 9 - 5:30, with an hour for lunch between 1-2pm.

As part of the art team at Cognito, your work will fall into two main categories:

1) Creating visual assets - diagrams, illustrations, graphs, tables etc.

2) Creating the video footage for our infographic videos, and editing them (please note you won't be writing the scripts or recording audio).

In this role you'll be expected to create beautiful visual assets, as well as compositing those assets to create diagrams for the information that help the learner understand the content. This role requires someone who not only has great drawing and artistic abilities, but who also has an exceptional eye for designing infographic layouts, and who is able to think critically about how the structure of their visuals either helps or hinders the viewer from learning the content.

When creating videos/diagrams, you will be working closely with a content writer who will provide guidance and help about the teaching purpose behind a given bit of content - but you will need to play an active role in coming up with good designs for how to teach things. The ideal candidate will be confident with secondary-school level science and maths, as you will need to be able to understand what your art and videos are trying to teach in order to make good design decisions.

Though the Cognito art style is simplistic, we are increasingly defaulting to using 2/3-point perspective for new art assets, and you will need to have excellent art skills in order to create new art (or rework existing art). Please see the art references given as part of the assessment task for an overview of the Cognito style.

What a typical day of work is like

The majority of work will involve some variation of the following process:

• Open up a script for the video to be created (this script will be a word document such as google docs).
• Read the document, and plan out the main 'scenes' of the video, and identify any potential uncertainties/points of confusion.
• As required, jump on a zoom call with the content writer, and work with them to decide how best to design the video (or possibly rework the script) in order to create the most effective teaching resource possible. This will likely happen a few times as you work through each video.
• Use After Effects and Illustrator to create the video footage / necessary artwork. You'll primarily be focusing on creating neat and coherent layouts & flows of information, and will make use of visual mechanisms (such as colour-coding or reducing the opacity of currently-irrelevant information) to help the student learn. You'll also ensure that the design choices made actively pre-empt and prevent misconceptions from arising.
• Edit the video file and voiceover audio together, so that the audio and visuals are neatly paired.
• Export the video file, ready for upload to YouTube.

Application process

• Applicants will need to complete an initial application task (~15 minutes) in order to be considered. Please see the 'Application task' section for details.
• If you made a sincere attempt at the application task, we will endeavour to reply to you within 7 working days, in order to let you know whether we will be asking you to do the second application task (also ~15 mins).
• After your second application task, we may invite you to an interview. This will be a 10-15 minute informal chat over zoom, just to say hello, learn a bit more about you as a person, and also to answer any questions you may have at this point.
• We will then ask you to complete a series of paid trials in order to get a more accurate sense of your abilities. Each trial will range between 20 mins - 1 hour, and will be paid at £15 per hour. You will be paid for these trials irrespective of whether we move forward with your application after that trial.
• Depending on the different candidates at this stage, we may offer multiple candidates trial periods of contract work, where we will be asking you to work with us as a contractor, working as close to full-time hours as you can accommodate (paid at £15 per hour again). Due to this part of the process, it's essential that you're currently working part-time or self-employed so that we're able to book in some contract work.
• Following that period of contract work, we will offer the successful candidate the job.

Requirements

• Fluent written and spoken English.
• You must live in the UK, and be a tax-resident of the UK.
• You must have passed GCSE maths and science. A level science or maths is strongly preferred.
• Science-related degree is strongly preferred.
• An active subscription to Adobe Illustrator and After Effects in order to complete the application process. Upon being hired, we will provide you with an Adobe CC subscription. Please note if you're using a cracked version of adobe you won't be eligible as we need to make use of Adobe Libraries as part of the trial process.
• Access to a computer connected to a graphics / drawing tablet (an ipad is not sufficient for this role as we need to use the desktop versions of the software).
• A fast & stable internet connection for uploading video files / video calls.
• This role will require someone who is self-motivated, has strong drawing skills, a brilliant eye for design and layout, and is fantastic at thinking of their work from the user's perspective. You will need to be an exceptionally clear thinker and communicator, as a large portion of the work will involve discussing and refining designs with the writer, always balancing academic precision with the need for visual clarity.
• Due to the job being remote, you'll need to be comfortable working independently for long periods of time, and to be able to stay engaged and productive without a lot of oversight.

Application task

The application task is split into two different parts, but we will check the first part before asking you to try the second (we will send this to you via follow-up email). Part 1 is linked below, and should take 15 minutes to complete. Please attach the output of part 1 to your application, using the questions & answer slots provided. The link takes you to Notion pages, and depending on where you are viewing this job, you may need to copy and paste the text of the link into your browser.

Part 1 - Art task

Please visit the following link to view Part 1 (link) (https://amadeuscarnegie.notion.site/Application-task-part-1-of-2-art-task-approx-15-mins-056109fd47394c53a34dfdecf791afe8?pvs=4)

Benefits

• £25,000 - £40,000 per annum, depending on ability & experience.
• 30 days paid holiday per year (this figure includes bank holidays).
• As a small company (8-10 people by the time you join) - we offer a friendly and informal environment, and there's a lot of potential to expand your role over the coming years, if that's something you're interested in.
• You'll play an essential part in creating some of the best learning resources in the world. To date, over 300 million questions have been answered on our platform, and our video lessons have been watched over 80 million times. Your skill and expertise will make a real difference to millions of students, and your videos will be made freely available to everyone via YouTube.