Visual Designer

Title: Visual Designer

Position Purpose:

The Visual Designer will support college-wide storytelling by producing creative, fully integrated visual communications for digital platforms and traditional print media with a goal of maintaining and elevating our institutional brand identity. This role offers an excellent opportunity for a designer looking to grow their skills and experience within a collaborative, fast-paced higher education environment.

How to Apply: Please submit your resume, a brief cover letter, and a link to your digital portfolio or website. Applications without a portfolio link showing a track record of high-quality, cross-platform print and digital visuals will not be considered.

Job Duties:

• Design multi-page print layouts (brochures, event programs, campus signage, and more) and high-impact digital assets (social media graphics, email layouts, and web pages).
• Work alongside our internal team — which includes editorial, marketing, photo, video, and social media — and other campus partners to brainstorm messages and convey them effectively through design.
• Partner with external printing vendors and the on-campus print shop to ensure high-quality, proper bleed setups, margins, and CMYK color profiles.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously from concept to final delivery using our project management system, Asana. Coordinate closely with the Senior Creative Director and design team to manage priorities and deadlines.
• Serve as a creative design resource to BCM colleagues and campus partners, helping translate complex concepts and data into clear visualizations.

Minimum Qualifications:

Education

Bachelor’s degree in the arts, graphic design, visual communications, or a related field required.

Experience

• A minimum of 2-3 years’ of professional design experience is preferred (creative agency experience or a client-facing role is a plus).
• High proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud, specifically InDesign (multi-page layouts), Illustrator (vector assets/logos), and Photoshop (image editing/optimization). Knowledge of After Effects or digital animation is a strong plus.

Skills and Knowledge

• Commitment to equity and inclusion, and serving the needs of a culturally and educationally diverse community.
• Possesses a strong baseline understanding of design principles and knows the technical differences between designing for digital and print projects.
• Demonstrated ability to work with clients, work independently, and guide projects toward effective design solutions.
• A strong desire to learn new technical tools, accept constructive feedback, and adapt to institutional workflows. Ability to pick up on Bates’ editorial style through continued exposure to requested copy edits (for example, knowing when to use a hyphen, en-dash, or em-dash.)
• Devotion to detail with a meticulous eye for alignment, typography, and catching errors.
• Basic familiarity with ADA/WCAG color contrast and web readability guidelines.
• Familiarity with WordPress and foundational knowledge of responsive design, HTML, CSS, and other web norms to ensure top-tier user experiences across all devices.
• Clear understanding of resolution requirements (300 DPI vs. 72 PPI), color spaces (CMYK vs. RGB, and the Pantone system), technical document setups, and digital file formats (SVG, PNG, WebP), and asset optimization for fast digital loading.

Benefits:

Bates College offers competitive salaries, excellent benefits (health, dental, 9% retirement contribution with potential for an additional 3% match, sick leave, 24 days of vacation, 2 personal days, 13 paid holidays, dependent care subsidy, free parking, access to library and athletic facilities & more), and a supportive, collegial environment in a drug and smoke-free workplace.

Hiring Range: The hiring range for this position is $50,000 to $55,000. Placement within the range depends on experience and other factors.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement:

Bates College is committed to the principle of equal opportunity and providing an educational and work environment free from discrimination. The college prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. Bates College adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations. All college faculty, staff, students, contractors, visitors, and volunteers are responsible for understanding and complying with the Non-Discrimination Policy.

Inquiries concerning the college’s policies, compliance with applicable laws, statutes, and regulations (such as Title VII, Title IX, and ADA/Section 504), and complaints may be directed to Gwen Lexow, Title IX Officer, 207-786-6445 or via email at glexow@bates.edu.

About Bates:

Bates is internationally recognized as a leading liberal arts college, attracting 2,000 students from across the U.S. and around the world.

Since 1855, Bates has been dedicated to educating the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. Committed to opportunity and excellence, Bates has always admitted students without regard to gender, race, religion, or national origin.

Cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action, Bates prepares leaders sustained by a love of learning and zeal for responsible stewardship of the wider world. Bates engages the forces — intellectual trends, demographic changes, and technology — that are transforming higher education and the world into which our students graduate.

Bates has highly competitive admissions, graduates over 90 percent of its entering students, and more than half of its alumni earn graduate degrees. Bates employs 200 faculty members and 550 staff.

The college is proud of deep roots in the Lewiston/Auburn community, Maine’s second-largest urban area with a population of approximately 65,000. Bates is located on a beautiful, 133-acre, traditional New England campus in Lewiston, an emerging city with an entrepreneurial climate, a lively arts scene, and a dynamic business community. Bates is 35 miles north of Portland, 140 miles north of Boston, and 350 miles north of New York City.

Advertised: Oct 02 2026 Eastern Daylight Time

Applications close: