Senior Designer

EF Education First; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 85,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Professional growth trainings

401(k) match

Comprehensive medical/dental/vision

Travel opportunities

WFH one day per week

Job summary

EF Adventures is seeking a Senior Designer who thinks conceptually, designs beautifully, and helps shape our evolving visual identity across website, campaigns, social, and email.

Join a lean, fast-moving team to define brand language, build design systems, and translate strategy into distinctive, scalable visuals that move with the travel tempo.

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of professional design experience at an agency, design firm, or in-house creative team, with a portfolio showing strategic thinking, distinctive visual craft, and breadth of work across brand, campaigns, and digital experiences.
• Proven experience building or evolving a visual identity or design system in an early-stage or transformation environment–you've helped define what a brand becomes, not just how it looks day-to-day
• Strong conceptual thinking: you generate and shape ideas, work from ambiguity, and help establish creative direction not just respond to it
• The ability to influence visual language and brand expression at a strategic level, with the craft to bring it to life across every channel
• Strong verbal and visual communication skills—you can articulate your design decisions, present concepts clearly, and bring stakeholders along
• Fluency in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite (After Effects and/or Premiere are a bonus). Your tools serve your ideas, not the other way around.
• You embrace new tools and technologies, adapting quickly to evolving creative workflows and platforms
• A genuine connection to travel, storytelling, and the EF Adventures mission
• A keen eye for detail–you catch inconsistencies and finish what you start
• Bonus: Experience with AI tools and scalable content systems or workflows

Responsibilities

• Brand Identity & Visual Systems: define and evolve the EF Adventures visual language as part of our brand refresh.
• Campaign Storytelling & Concepting: contribute to campaign ideation and develop visuals from exploration to execution.
• Cross-Channel Creative Expression: design across all stages of the customer journey, driving conversion while balancing brand storytelling and business goals.
• Creative Partnership: collaborate with copy, marketing, and product teams to shape integrated campaign ideas and storytelling systems.

Skills

Brand & identity design

Design systems

Conceptual thinking

Influence visual language

Verbal & visual communication

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Attention to detail

AI tools (bonus)

Tools

After Effects

Premiere

Job description

EF Adventures is a fast-growing adventure travel brand offering guided group tours for active travelers who want to experience the world differently—think hiking in the Alps, biking along the coasts of Spain, and multi-adventure trips across the globe. We're building something special and moving fast, and we need sharp, ambitious people to help us do it.

The Role

This isn't an execution-only role. We're looking for a Senior Designer who thinks conceptually, designs beautifully, and is excited to help shape a growing brand. You'll help translate our evolving brand strategy into a visual identity that is distinctive, scalable, and ownable across every touchpoint.

On any given day, you could be shaping a campaign concept, exploring a visual direction, refining the design system, or creating work across website, paid media, social, and email. You'll move fluidly between big-picture thinking and detailed execution, collaborating closely with a small creative team to bring ideas from concept to launch.

All candidates must submit a portfolio to be considered.

Who You Are

• You've honed your craft in an agency or in-house creative environment and know how to move fast, juggle multiple projects, and deliver great work under pressure
• You think in visual languages, frameworks, and ideas–you'reas energized by shaping the visual direction of a brand as you are by crafting an individual asset, and you move fluidly between the two
• You have experience building or evolving a brand visual identity from an early or transitional stage (not just maintaining one) and you're comfortable working from ambiguity to help define what's emerging
• You're as comfortable presenting a campaign concept as you are sweating the pixel-level detail. That range is your strength, and you use it at every stage of the work
• You have a strong point of view and you're not afraid to bring it to the table or to push the thinking in the room toward something sharper
• You're proactive in shaping early creative direction and influencing brand expression, not just responding to it
• You’re curious about people and passionate about active travel! You understand what motivates someone to explore, and you use those insights to create meaningful, resonant experiences.

What You'll Do

Brand Identity & Visual Systems

• Help define and evolve the EF Adventures visual language as a core part of our brand refresh
• Build and refine design systems, guidelines, and rules that give the brand structure, scalability, and room to flex across touchpoints
• Ensure consistency across the brand while enabling creative flexibility. You’ll bethe person who knows where the guardrails are and when to push against them.

Campaign Storytelling & Concepting

• Contribute to campaign ideation and creative concept development from the start
• Shape how ideas come to life visually, carrying concepts from early exploration through final execution across campaigns, lead nurturing, and brand storytelling

Cross-Channel Creative Expression

• Design across every stage of the customer journey, connecting strategic brand thinking with exceptional craft and execution
• Stay sharp on design trends, competitors, and best practices–continuously raising the bar for EF Adventures' visual presence
• Create compelling website experiences and landing pages that balance brand storytelling with business goals to drive conversion
• Develop visually compelling email experiences that reflect the brand's design and messaging
• Create content that is engaging and impactful for organic social and paid media

Creative Partnership

• Work closely with copy, marketing, and product teams as an active creative collaborator to help shape integrated campaign ideas and storytelling systems from the start, not after the strategy is set
• Collaborate with copywriters and fellow creatives to build a cohesive, elevated brand voice and visual identity together

What You Bring

• 7–10 years of professional design experience at an agency, design firm, or in-house creative team, with a portfolio showcasing strategic thinking, distinctive visual craft, and a breadth of work across brand, campaigns, and digital experiences.
• Proven experience building or evolving a visual identity or design system in an early-stage or transformation environment–you've helped define what a brand becomes, not just how it looks day-to-day
• Strong conceptual thinking: you generate and shape ideas, work from ambiguity, and help establish creative direction not just respond to it
• The ability to influence visual language and brand expression at a strategic level, with the craft to bring it to life across every channel
• Strong verbal and visual communication skills–you can articulate your design decisions, present creative concepts clearly, and bring stakeholders along on the thinking
• Solid fluency in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite (After Effects and/or Premiere are a bonus). Your tools serve your ideas, not the other way around.
• You embrace new tools and technologies, adapting quickly to evolving creative workflows and platforms
• Comfort working in a fast-moving, lean, high-ownership environment where priorities shift and you help define the path forward
• A genuine connection to travel, storytelling, and the EF Adventures mission
• A keen eye for detail–you catch the inconsistencies others miss, and you finish what you start
• Bonus: Experience with AI tools and scalable content systems or workflows

Why you’ll love working here: Perks, Benefits, and more!

This is the most fun, high caliber place you’ll ever work. Ask any employee why they love EF (whether they’ve been here 10 minutes or 10 years) and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: it’s the people. When you work at EF, you join a purpose-driven, international and energetic community that thrives on continuous learning, fearless innovation and mutual support. In addition, you can expect:

• Commitment to professional growth: robust monthly calendar of trainings and workshops
• Four weeks paid vacation your first year, ten paid holidays, and two floating holidays
• Exciting business travel opportunities
• 25% company match on your 401(k) contributions
• Market-leading medical, dental and vision coverage, along with options for life and disability insurance, accident and hospital insurance, legal and pet insurance
• Dependent care, healthcare and commuter Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• Access to fertility care and family-building support
• Wellness benefits including a yearly fitness reimbursement
• Frequent social and learning events, including access to our employee-run resource groups
• Robust Employee Assistance Program
• Tenure-based sabbatical eligibility
• EF Product Discounts (discounts on travel, international language schools, Au Pair program and more)
• Discounts at local venues and businesses
• Amazing offices designed to match the caliber of the people who work there, plus the flexibility of working from home one day a week.
• Compensation range for this role is $85,000-$100,000 based on experience.