Creative Designer

Location: Chicago, IL

Office: 3 days/week in South Loop office

Reports to: Principal

Starting Salary: $87,000-$106,400 + equity

About Tavern Research

Tavern Research is a political tech startup building tools and insights to help our customers win elections and make better, evidence-based decisions. We specialize in scaling expert human work, such as content generation and survey research to support thoughtful, data-driven civic engagement. We're a venture-backed, mission-driven, fast-moving, and mostly technical team focused on supporting campaigns and organizations working to strengthen democratic participation. We are experimental by design and expect every team member to continuously improve how they work using new tools and technology. Everything else is on our website. If you still have questions, let us know when you apply!

About You

You're a creative Swiss army knife — skilled at video production, but versatile across visual design. You're part editor, part designer, part systems thinker. You spot what’s off, fix it, and build the process that prevents it from slipping again. You like clean lines, clear logic, and work that tells a clear story. 

You're scrappy and motivated, ready to grow in a role. You think about templates, file organization, and how to scale good creative judgment. You like building repeatable systems that still leave room for taste.

You're fluent in design and editing tools and fast at incorporating feedback. You thrive under deadlines, take critique well, and know how to elevate something from good to great. Experience in political or policy spaces is a plus, but what matters most is your ability to communicate complex ideas visually and clearly.

About the role

This is a hybrid role that blends video editing, graphic design, and slide deck development, with a core focus on refining and elevating machine-generated content. You’ll work across Tavern’s visual output — ads, websites, decks, campaign materials, and internal docs. Most projects will start with AI-generated drafts. Your job is to apply the human judgment, design instincts, and taste that turn raw output into work that feels intentional, persuasive, and alive.

You’ll collaborate with our research and strategy, working within our delivery team to transform data and messaging into sharp, compelling visual communications. One day, you might be editing a short video; another day, you might be designing a graphic or refining a visual framework that helps the team move faster while maintaining high quality. You’ll partner with our Client Delivery Lead, communicating directly with clients about scope, timelines, and technical constraints.

You’ll help build the creative systems we rely on for our core business: defining aesthetic standards, developing templates, organizing file libraries and b-roll, and strengthening the company's overall visual backbone. When demand for our video ads is lighter, you’ll shift into broader design work, ensuring you’re consistently contributing across our full creative pipeline.

In short, you’re part designer, part editor, part systems builder. You set the creative standard, uphold it across every project, and build the processes that help the whole team reach it. Experience working with polling data, content testing, or campaign messaging is a plus, but not required.

Responsibilities

• Edit and refine machine-generated and assembled videos, graphics, and layouts, adding the human judgment and design polish that turn raw output into persuasive, intentional, creative work.
• Design and refine visual materials across ads, websites, decks, memos, campaign deliverables, and internal communications.
• Develop and maintain templates, design systems, and repeatable frameworks that help the team produce high-quality creative quickly and consistently.
• Build, organize, and maintain our creative asset libraries, including templates, b-roll, stock footage, licensed content, and brand elements.
• Create original data visualizations, diagrams, and graphics that translate research findings into clear, persuasive visuals for clients.
• Collaborate with researchers and strategists to bring polling, content-testing results, and messaging insights to life visually.
• Define and uphold Tavern’s aesthetic standards for ads, decks, and videos, ensuring everything we ship feels intentional and on-brand.
• Leverage AI to automate and improve creative consistency and speed.
• Manage quick-turn creative needs while also contributing to longer-term system building and infrastructure improvements.
• Communicate with Client Delivery Lead and clients around project scope, timelines, limitations, and revisions.
• Ensure all creative deliverables meet Tavern’s quality bar and support our mission of making complex ideas clear, engaging, and effective.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience in video production, visual design, or similar creative roles.
• Strong video editing skills using Final Cut, Premiere, or comparable tools.
• Proficiency with design and presentation tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, Google Slides, or PowerPoint.
• Comfortable using AI tools in creative workflows.
• Strong instincts around layout, typography, visual hierarchy, and overall design quality.
• Comfortable communicating with clients and managing expectations around scope, timelines, and revisions.
• Able to collaborate with technical engineers to inform product decisions, troubleshoot limitations, and translate design needs into actionable feedback.
• Scrappy, resourceful, and independently driven, with a strong desire to grow and try new things.
• Experience developing templates, style systems, or scalable design frameworks.
• Bonus: experience in political, advocacy, or other fast-paced, high-stakes environments.

To be explicit: you don’t need a degree to work here. You just need to be exceptional at the things we’re asking from you.

Benefits

• Premium health insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Office closed for all federal holidays
• 401k match
• Equity