Digital News Designer/Graphics Reporter

Job Description

Digital News Designer/Graphics Reporter

The San Francisco Chronicle has an immediate opening on its design and graphics team for a digital news designer or graphics reporter who works at the nexus of reporting, design, information graphics and development.

The Chronicle’s design team is a multidisciplinary group of designers, developers, graphic artists and graphics reporters. We collaborate frequently and interchangeably with the Chronicle’s data team (which specializes in data analysis and takes the lead in data visualization) and the Hearst DevHub (a centralized group of developers and engineers that manages a shared codebase and creates templates, tooling, original reporting and other design and development for newsrooms throughout the company). We also work in close concert with the visuals and investigative teams. (Both were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2023.)

In the venn diagram of content creation and production, we occupy the overlapping space and play a central role in the newsroom’s most important work. We provide design direction, make UX improvements to small enterprise projects and steer teams toward alternative story forms that may communicate their reporting better than a traditional news article. We work with the audience team to balance our storytelling and innovation goals with the technical and design best practices that maximize SEO and the user experience. From ideation to final deployment, we also project manage, design and develop the newsroom’s largest projects.

The ideal candidate will translate reporting into visually compelling packages for digital platforms. As a hybrid team, our tasks vary between projects and depend on each team member’s skill sets, which include reporting, mapping, illustration, motion graphics and frontend development. Over a week, you may augment a colleague’s story with a storytelling asset like a map, code a project and report out a timeline.

You must have an understanding of journalism and an awareness of ethical practices for visuals. You should have entry-level expertise in at least one of the following: UX and visual design; coding; reporting for graphics or alternative story forms; and/or illustration. Knowledge of trends in social media, video and social media are a plus, as are data analysis and data visualization. Previous experience in important newsroom coverage areas such as climate science and architecture and urban development are also desirable.

Candidates must be willing to relocate to San Francisco to work in a hybrid workplace, where employees are expected to be in the office three days a week.

Qualifications

• A degree in journalism or equivalent early-stage experience for those with slightly different, non-J-school origin stories.
• Basic understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with knowledge of or a willingness to learn React and Typescript
• Skills with Adobe Suite, specifically Photoshop, Illustrator and AfterEffects
• Skills with non-coding data visualization tools such as DataWrapper or Tableau
  
  

Experience/Skills We Would Love To See

• Design thinking backed up by strong news design, visual design and/or UX practice
• Frontend frameworks such as Gatsby or Next.js. (Backend skills are a plus, but not a focus of this position.)
• Command line/terminal
• ArchieML
• Node
• Package managers like NPM and/or Yarn
• Animation and related apps and libraries, such as AfterEffects, GSAP and/or Framer Motion
• Information graphics design; data scraping, analysis and visualization; and related apps and libraries, such as AI2HTML, R, Python, Pandas and/or D3
• Mapping and/or cartography and related apps and libraries, such as QGIS and/or MapLibre
• Version control with Git
• Prettier and/or Linting
• Video and related apps and libraries such as Final Cut and FFMPEG
• Illustration via Procreate or other kinds of media
• 3d via Blender and/or Three.js
• Canvas
• Gaming technologies such as Unity or other technologies like AR and photogrammetry to craft innovative journalism projects that surprise and delight
• SEO
• Social media
  
  

It’s impossible to tick all the boxes listed above, nor do we expect you to be equally skilled in all of them. Whom we’re looking for will have a combination of skills that complements the expertise already present in the Chronicle newsroom, and a willingness to grow and to collaborate.

To apply, please send us a resume, cover letter and five work examples. If what you contributed to a project is not immediately clear or if how the work applies to journalism is not apparent, please explain in no more than two to three sentences.

In accordance with applicable law, Hearst is required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for this role if hired in California. The reasonable estimate is between $80,000 and $90,000. Please note this information is specific to those hired in San Francisco. If this role is open to candidates outside of San Francisco, the salary range would be aligned to that specific location. A final decision on the successful candidate’s starting salary will be based on a number of permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills and experience, training, certifications, and education.

About the San Francisco Chronicle & SFGate:

The Chronicle is world-class journalism, San Francisco style. With name-brand voices and a keen editorial eye, The Chronicle is an authority that still surprises. It’s not afraid of being controversial or of doing things that haven’t been done. It’s bolder, brighter, and fearless. It’s news that is delivered to the discerning reader through multiple platforms.

SFGate provides a 360-degree view of San Francisco, wildly reflective of right now. Provocative, energetic, and unapologetic, the Gate is in constant conversation with the world's most eclectic city.

Join our world-class team!