Level | Skill (Individual) | Influence (Team) | Thinking (Team) |
L1 - Jr Designer | • Developing an understanding of core visual design skills and beginning to apply these skills to small or medium-sized brand design projects
• Beginning to utilize our existing design system to craft visual designs
• Beginning to create designs that reflect our brand and clearly communicate our story
• Exploring and developing additional skills for visual design work | • Developing your ability to present visual design decisions clearly
• Beginning to influence decision-making for brand design projects among your core team | • Spending time fully understanding project needs and partnering with your manager to contribute to coordination and organization of assigned projects
• Starting to propose improvements to existing processes
• Contributing to project planning and coordination
• Learning to create clear timelines and ownership responsibilities, and communicating clearly with project partners |
L2 - Graphic Designer | • Solid understanding of core visual design skills and confidently applying these skills to small to medium-sized brand design projects
• Utilizing our existing design system to create designs with strong layout, hierarchy, typography, and color decisions
• Creating designs that reflect our brand and clearly communicate our story | • Clearly and effectively presenting visual design decisions
• Beginning to build compelling arguments that consider brand design, business, and organizational needs
• Influencing decisions among your core team and beginning to drive broader stakeholder alignment | • Spending time fully understanding project needs and contributing to the project planning process
• Proposing improvements to existing processes, prioritizing your work, and tracking project goals and progress
• Leading steps in the project planning process, such as ownership assignments, crafting budgets, and tracking deliverables |
L3 - Sr Designer | • Strong understanding of core visual design skills and confidently applying these skills to large brand design projects
• Consistently creating designs with strong layout, hierarchy, typography, and color decisions
• Beginning to push our existing design system to new places and concept new visual directions and overarching narratives for projects | • Proactively developing the approach, design stages, processes, and timeline to deliver on brand design projects
• Effectively presenting visual design decisions and building compelling arguments
• Proactively influencing decisions and working with leaders from other teams to drive broader alignment | • Spending time fully understanding organizational needs and establishing clear processes with multiple stakeholders or teams
• Prioritizing work effectively based on business and customer needs and documenting your thinking with minimal guidance
• Comfortable working with project tools to document your work and defining new tools, templates, or systems to recommend better ways of working |
L4 - Art Director | • Expert understanding of core visual design skills and improving the quality of overall visual systems
• Confidently applying expertise to extra-large brand design projects
• Consistently creating designs with strong layout, hierarchy, typography, and color decisions
• Proactively concepting new visual directions and overarching narratives for projects | • Clearly providing direction to others to execute your vision
• Presenting visual design decisions expertly and building compelling arguments
• Proactively working with leaders from other teams to drive alignment
• Teaching others the art of storytelling, influence, and presentation skills | • Proactively developing the approach, design stages, brand research plans, and timeline to deliver on brand design projects and new opportunities
• Pushing the brief to new places at early stages of work and driving strategic ideation with cross-functional teams |
L5 - Associate Creative Director | • Expert understanding of core visual design skills and investing in improving the quality of overall visual systems
• Confidently applying expertise to extra-large brand design projects
• Consistently creating designs with strong layout, hierarchy, typography, and color decisions
• Proactively concepting new visual directions and overarching narratives for projects
• Mentoring others in your areas of expertise | • Bringing a strong voice and established design leadership to the company
• Articulating a strategic vision that drives stakeholder buy-in and inspires teams and leaders
• Proactively influencing brand decisions among VP-level and executive stakeholders
• Training others in storytelling, influence, and presentation skills | • Proactively identifying new brand opportunities and developing the approach, design stages, brand research plans, and timeline to deliver on them
• Actively shaping the initial creative brief for main projects and confidently identifying and driving new brand initiatives |
L6 - Creative Director | • Expert understanding of core visual design skills and investing in improving the quality of overall visual systems
• Confidently applying expertise to extra-large brand design projects
• Consistently creating designs with strong layout, hierarchy, typography, and color decisions
• Proactively concepting new visual directions and overarching narratives for projects
• Mentoring others in your areas of expertise | • Influencing the C-suite and regularly influencing brand design decisions at the highest level
• Sharing work with the external design community via blog posts, conferences, etc. | • Proactively identifying and implementing new approaches to the brand design process and exploring previously undefined problem spaces
• Actively shaping the initial creative brief for main projects and confidently identifying and driving new brand initiatives |