What difference will you make?
As a newly incorporating Community Interest Company, establishing a professional, cohesive brand identity is vital to building trust with local communities, local environmental and cultural societies, decision makers, and funding bodies.
A compelling, approachable visual identity will ensure our public educational tools, digital story maps, and community resilience workshops are accessible, engaging, and non-alarmist. By volunteering your creative skills, you will directly help us launch our enterprise with a strong visual presence, enabling us to reinvest 100% of our operational surpluses into place-anchored research and local climate adaptation initiatives.
What are we looking for?
Required Skills & Qualities
- Illustration & Logo Design Experience creating clean, versatile brand logos and visual marks that translate well across both digital platforms (websites, social media, digital story maps) and print (reports, toolkits, banners).
- Conceptual Visual Storytelling Ability to take rich, multi-layered ideas—such as landscape, geological strata, local heritage, and community narrative—and distil them into an approachable visual identity.
- Design Software Proficiency Proficient in standard vector graphics software (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or Affinity Designer) to deliver production-ready vector master files (.AI, .EPS, .SVG, .PNG).
- Collaborative Communication Comfortable taking part in an initial briefing conversation, receiving constructive feedback, and refining concepts through 1–2 review rounds.
- Grounded & Reassuring Aesthetic Understanding of how to visually represent climate resilience and hazard awareness in a way that feels empowering, place-anchored, and reassuring.
- Self-Motivated & Reliable Able to manage a short-term, project-based workload (approx. 10–15 hours over 3–4 weeks) independently and meet agreed milestones.
What will you be doing?
Overview & Organisational Context
As a new Community Interest Company (CIC), Strata and Story is currently led by our Founder, operating alongside a close-knit network of community leaders, academic collaborators, artists and cultural/heritage societies. Because we are establishing our visual identity from the ground up, you will work directly with our Founder in a collaborative, agile, and high-impact capacity. There are no heavy corporate hierarchies or lengthy approval loops - your creative expertise will directly shape our core brand from day one.
Key Responsibilities & Priorities
We are looking for a Volunteer Illustrator or Graphic Designer to lead the creation of our founding logo and brand mark. As a geosocial enterprise, our work lives at the dynamic intersection of deep time, physical landscapes, community heritage, and climate adaptation. Your primary responsibility will be translating these multi-layered themes into an approachable, memorable visual identity that resonates with both local community members and institutional stakeholders.
Your key priorities will include
- Creative Discovery Participating in an initial kick-off call to discuss our mission, explore visual references, and define the core aesthetic balance between physical Earth science ("strata") and qualitative human narrative ("story").
- Concept Development Drafting initial logo concepts and visual marks that communicate safety, place-based heritage, and community empowerment without feeling alarmist or overly technical.
- Iterative Refinement Gathering feedback over 1 to 2 light-touch review rounds to hone the chosen direction into a polished, final design.
By the end of this short-term project (approx. 10–15 hours total over 3–4 weeks), you will provide a complete, production-ready brand package, including
- Primary Logo A full-name logo incorporating our registered title, Strata and Story C.I.C., for use on official reports, proposal covers, and public exhibitions.
- Secondary Mark / Icon A simplified graphical emblem or avatar suitable for social media profiles, website favicons, email signatures, and small print items.
- Master Asset Suite High-resolution vector files (.AI, .EPS, or .SVG) and web-ready raster formats (.PNG with transparent background, .JPEG).
- Mini Brand Style Sheet A simple 1-page guide specifying exact color codes (HEX/CMYK) and typography recommendations to ensure brand consistency across all future digital story maps and community toolkits.
