Community Engagement Specialist, Village of Northbrook - Northbrook, IL

Title: Community Engagement Specialist

Type: Full-time

Location: Village of Northbrook

Pay: +/- $65,000 - $85,000,

The Community Engagement Specialist will play a vital role in shaping and maintaining the Village’s public presence. This position is responsible for managing the Village’s voice across social media platforms, capturing video and photographic content at key meetings and events, producing engaging visual materials, and supporting the planning and execution of public initiatives. Working in the Village Manager’s Office under the direction of the Communications Manager, the Community Engagement Specialist will contribute to the development and delivery of strategic, creative communications that effectively share the Village’s story and engage the community.

Apply here.

Planner - Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP)

Associate: $57,746 - $70,739
Planner: $66,409 - $81,351
Senior: $73,375 - $93,553

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is seeking to hire a full-time employee at the Associate, Planner, or Senior level in the Planning Department. We are interested in applicants with a general planning or public administration background; however, we are particularly interested in applicants with experience and/or interest in economic development planning, housing planning, or bike and pedestrian planning (including the Americans with Disabilities Act planning (ADA)).

Full description and application also available here.

Graphic Design Studio Lead - Los Angeles

The Graphic Design Studio Lead, Los Angeles is a strategic team leader who supervises a team of talented graphic designers. They will drive the consistency of storytelling and visual execution by directing the design and production of highly graphic print and digital products.

About Alta

Alta Planning + Design is an active transportation company dedicated to creating active, healthy communities through planning, landscape architecture, engineering, and education/encouragement programs. Alta was founded in 1996 when cities and communities were calling for safer streets for people walking and bicycling as the non-motorized transportation movement developed into a profession in the United States. We pioneered the field of active transportation, evolving our planning and design work into a visionary global practice that empowers people to live active, healthy lives and getting them to where they need to go.

Our core values and work bring about positive change by creating places that are geared toward moving people rather than cars, connecting community members to daily needs and human experience, and empowering every person to live an active healthy life. As a global leader in mobility innovation for over 24 years with 175 people on staff, we are dedicated to connecting people to places by working across disciplines and scale to address social justice, safety, and environmental resilience.

Position Priorities

The Graphic Design Studio Lead, Los Angeles is a high-level strategic thinker, with an advanced understanding of graphic design principles.

The essential priorities of this exempt, salaried position are to:

• Conduct routine departmental tasks: oversee project intake, balance team workload, review graphic design deliverables
• Set design direction and develop branding and graphic design elements for print and web for both internal and external clients
• Assist with project scopes and budgets for proposals and and internal project management purposes
• Supervise graphic design staff, including daily task oversight, performance reviews, professional development, hiring, onboarding, and training. Track project budgets and provide guidance to staff about assignments and level of effort
• Serve as the point of contact on projects with internal and external project manager clients

Responsibilities + Tasks

Additional responsibilities of this position include, but are not limited to:

• Set project style and supervise staff on production work within that style
• Generate strong, fresh visuals from concept to completion including strategy and concept development, research, and design
• Develop and review project intake requests, project timelines, and production schedules
• Review graphic designers’ work through a QA/QC process, oversee the production of production-ready files, ensuring accuracy in all graphic-based documents
• Coordinate and collaborate with internal Alta project managers to agree on Creative Services budgets, scopes, and deliverables
• Work closely with clients, planners, landscape designers, engineers, communications and marketing specialists, external vendors, and fabricators
• Co-lead, attend, and present at client meetings, co-host client-facing branding and discovery workshops, speak in public at virtual or in-person meetings and events. Lead internal project kick-off calls
• Travel occasionally to client sites for proposal interviews, kick-off meetings, stakeholder workshops, and site visits
• Provide guidance to graphic designers on how to incorporate internal & external client feedback into the designs

Requirements

This position requires a combination of skills, experience and education including, but not limited to:

• 8 or more years of experience as a graphic designer
• 1-2 years of experience managing or mentoring staff
• Demonstrated understanding of project management principles, including scope, budget, schedule, and quality control
• Demonstrated ability to take a project from concept to completion
• Demonstrated ability to manage and balance the demands of many projects simultaneously
• Demonstrated ability to think creatively, with a portfolio showcasing experiences in branding, typography, color, layout, basic web/digital design, and print/digital-ready files
• Exhibits accuracy, attention to detail and strong organizational skills
• Strong initiative and the ability to work independently with little or no supervision
• Strong professional ethics, leadership skills, accountability, and decision-making capabilities
• Strong interpersonal, written and verbal communication and analytic skills
• Expert in Adobe Creative Suite
• Proficient in MS Office, G-suite, or similar products

Preferred Skills + Certifications

There are a number of additional skills that would be beneficial to this position including, but not limited to:

• Experience in the A/E/C industry
• Experience in wayfinding and/or environmental graphic design
• Experience designing maps
• Experience creating hand illustrations
• Experience creating wireframes and mockups for website design
• Experience in UI/UX design
• Experience with project management software (such as Trello)

Reporting + Management Structure

Reports to the Art Director and generally will manage a team of Junior Graphic Designers, Graphic Designers, and/or Senior Graphic Designers.

What we offer

Compensation

• The pay range for this position is $85,000 – 105,000 annually.  Placement within the range is based upon experience, skill-sets, and qualifications.

Alta offers comprehensive benefits to all full-time employees.

• Medical: PPO or HSA medical plans, Alta pays 75% of the cost.
• Dental/Vision: PPO, Alta pays 90% of the cost
• Life Insurance: Alta pays 100% of the premium for life and AD&D equal to your base compensation.
• 401k: Alta provides a safe harbor match up to 4%.
• PTO: 21 days accrued annually to start.
• Holidays: 11 total company paid holidays
• Additional benefits: Wellness reimbursement up to $800 annually, Alta Gets Around reimbursement up to $900 annually, 5-year travel award, and professional development opportunities.

To apply, please upload your resume and a cover letter, telling us why you’re interested in Alta and why you’d be a good fit. Due to the high volume of applicants, we will not be able to respond to email or phone inquiries.

Urban Designer/Planner - Houseal Lavigne Associates

Who: Houseal Lavigne Associates is a nationally recognized and award-winning urban planning and community development consulting firm that provides a wide range of planning, design and development related services to both public and private sector clients throughout the country. The firm’s office is in Downtown Chicago, Illinois.

What: Do you love maps, graphics, illustrations, and urban design? Are you an expert working with Illustrator, Photoshop, GIS, InDesign, and SketchUp? Do you have a good understanding urban planning and development concepts? Then we are looking for you.
Houseal Lavigne Associates is building a great team of the industry’s best and brightest, and we have an amazing career opportunity available. We are seeking a candidate with strong interest and demonstrated expertise and proficiency with planning related maps, graphics, illustrations, visualizations, and reports to join our graphics team.
Duties would include, but not be limited to:

Planner - Village of Huntley, IL

Who: Village of Huntley, IL, Development Services Department

What: This position performs professional, technical, and administrative work related to new developments in the Village. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, performing varied services and assignments related to zoning administration, site plan review, project management, long-range planning, and code enforcement. The position requires strong customer service and excellent communication skills and the ability to meet strict deadlines. Strong writing skills and attention to detail required.

Work includes responsibility for providing information regarding Village codes and standards to the public; preparation of maps and other illustrative materials; and collecting planning data. The position also involves responsibility for providing technical advice and guidance to the Director of Development Services and other Village staff regarding development activity. The Planner will serve as staff liaison to the Plan Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, and Historic Preservation Commission. Attendance at various evening meetings is required.

Entry Level Planner - MKSK (Detroit)

Who: MKSK is a landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm known for creative solutions addressing economic, social, environmental, historical, and cultural challenges within our cities. Our 90+ person team of Landscape Architects and Urban Planners work throughout the Great Lakes and Southeast Regions from 7 offices in 5 states.
MKSK’s niche is to craft public places and spaces to transform, inspire, and perform successfully. Our clients include cities, development organizations, higher ed, hospitals, transportation agencies, Fortune 500 corporations, and select developers. Our projects include planning and design for downtowns, river/waterfronts, neighborhoods, cultural and campus environments. Our Detroit office leads the firm’s transportation planning group that links transportation design with land use thru corridor plans, Complete Streets Design, transit plans, parking studies, and form-based codes.

What: We are seeking a talented Planner to help prepare projects in our small, but growing Detroit office. In particular, we are looking for someone with skills in mapping and graphics plus research and writing. This position involves drafting and editing reports and documents, preparation of plan maps, development of graphics and document layout, and preparation of presentation materials. Data collection is also part of the work including traffic counts, parking inventories, land use surveys, and occasionally intercept surveys of people on the street. Some surveys, meetings, and workshops occur on evenings and weekends.

Planner II, Planner III, or Planner Senior - Austin, TX

Who: City of Austin, Texas – Planning & Zoning Dept. – Comprehensive Planning Division

What: The Planning and Zoning Department is seeking a Planner II, III, or Senior to work as part of a team to create Small Area Plans (corridor, centers, neighborhood, etc.). Main responsibilities include background research and analysis; develop outreach strategies and techniques; develop meeting design and materials; conduct small group facilitation; synthesize public input; develop plan content: text, illustrations, photographs, charts, and graphs; give public presentations; present to boards and commissions; engage in other planning activities as needed to support implementation of Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan and related Small Area Plans. Essential duties and functions may include the following:

Marketing Coordinator, Oak Park Economic Development Corporation - Oak Park, IL

Marketing Coordinator

Oak Park Economic Development Corporation (OPEDC)

Oak Park, Illinois

Job Description

OPEDC is seeking an energetic and creative marketing/communications professional to lead the modernization of our corporate brand and efforts to actively engage key stakeholders, particularly the Chicagoland business and commercial real estate community.

Primary Responsibilities

• Corporate Brand Management – lead efforts to improve brand visibility and effectiveness in key target markets within Oak Park and the Chicagoland commercial real estate community;

• Web Site Management - manage the design and redeployment of the company’s website along with ongoing content updates;

• Public Relations & Social Media - press release copy-writing, curate social media, creation and  distribution of email campaigns via Constant Contact;

• Graphic Design - responsible for creating visual designs for web application, media advertisements and collateral materials;

• Event Management - planning and execution of company events such as annual meetings or offsite
industry related conferences and trade shows;

• Preparation of materials for OPEDC (or Village) Board and Executive Committee meetings;

• Assist senior management in the development of strategic relationships, new initiatives, and innovative solutions for furthering the organization’s mission;

• Attend and represent the organization at community and Village events.

Desired Experience and Competencies

• 2-3 years of experience in a marketing, PR or communications role;

• Strong project management experience;

• Strong social media and web development skills;

• Knowledge of and interest in community marketing, commercial real estate and economic development;

• History of success with brand building and community promotion through social/new media;

• Experience with graphic design and collateral production;

• Strong interpersonal communication skills, both informal and in presentation with a proven track record of developing and maintaining relationships;

• Energetic and lively personality; enjoys social functions, meeting and interacting with community members and promoting the organization and community.

Applicants should expect to present examples of past success and product, preferably through a portfolio or compilation of work.

Compensation structure will be commensurate with experience. Position is Full-time.

Applicants should submit a resume, cover letter and two (2) references electronically to marketing@opdc.net.


Position open until filled.