Multidisciplinary Designer / Photographer

ABOUT THE ROLE

Boomkat is looking for an experienced multidisciplinary designer and photographer to join our small team in Manchester.

This is not a graduate or entry-level position. We're looking for someone with substantial professional experience who can work confidently and independently across photography, moving image and graphic design, combining strong technical ability with excellent visual judgement, accuracy and an understanding of the demands of commercial work.

It's an unusual combination of disciplines, so we're less concerned with your current job title than with the quality of your work, your experience and the ideas you can bring to the role.

ABOUT BOOMKAT

Established in Manchester in 1998, Boomkat is an independent online record store specialising in innovative, exceptional and often overlooked music from around the world.

Alongside the store, we work closely with artists and labels and are involved in releasing and presenting music across vinyl, CD, cassette and digital formats.

Physical objects and how they are presented have always been an important part of what we do. We care about photography, typography, record sleeves, print, film and the wider visual culture surrounding music, and we're looking for someone who shares those interests.

WHERE WE'RE HEADING

We've recently launched a completely redesigned Boomkat website, and this role comes at a point when we want to make a similar step forward in the visual work surrounding it.

We have an established photographic style and a strong sense of what Boomkat is, but we're not looking for someone simply to maintain what already exists. We want to improve and develop how we photograph the things we sell, considerably raise the ambition of our moving-image work, and bring more creative thinking to the way Boomkat and the music we care about are presented visually.

We're looking for someone who will take an active part in that process — bringing their own ideas, references and experience, questioning things when they can be better, and helping us work out what the next version of Boomkat's visual language should look like.

THE ROLE

A significant part of the role is photography.

You'll be responsible for photographing the records, books, tapes and other physical releases that appear on Boomkat. We have an established in-house photographic style and a high standard of consistency and accuracy, so you'll need to be able to understand and work confidently within that from the outset.

At the same time, we don't want things to stand still. We're looking for someone with the experience and imagination to develop that visual language, experiment with new approaches and bring strong ideas of their own.

Moving image is increasingly important to us. We want to develop a much stronger and more distinctive approach to video around the music and physical releases we sell and release ourselves.

This includes shooting and editing short-form work for social media and our website , but we're less interested in simply producing "content" than in finding interesting and visually distinctive ways of presenting music and physical objects through moving image. We want the person joining us to play an important part in shaping what that looks like.

You'll also work on graphic design projects, particularly artwork and layouts for vinyl, cassette and CD releases, alongside occasional work across other areas of Boomkat.

A sophisticated understanding of typography and layout is essential.

This is a creative design position rather than a production-artworking or pre-press role. Technical preparation of finished artwork for manufacture isn't part of the job.

EXPERIENCE

We're looking for somebody who already has significant professional experience in photography and visual design.

You should be comfortable working in a commercial environment where deadlines are real, details matter and work needs to be delivered accurately and consistently.

You'll need to be capable of managing your own workload, prioritising competing requirements and taking a project from brief through to a finished piece of work without requiring constant supervision.

We're deliberately not specifying an exact number of years of experience. The quality and breadth of someone's professional work matters more to us than whether they've been doing it for five years or ten.

However, this isn't a position intended for recent graduates or someone looking for their first professional creative role.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We're looking for somebody with strong visual judgement and cultural awareness as well as technical ability.

You might currently be a photographer who also designs and works with moving image; a multidisciplinary designer with particularly strong photography skills; or somebody whose career has naturally moved between these disciplines.

We're looking for:

• Excellent professional photography skills, including a strong understanding of lighting, composition, colour and image processing.

• Professional experience producing photography to a consistently high standard and to deadline.

• Strong moving-image skills, including shooting and editing, and an interest in developing ideas rather than simply reproducing established social-media formats.

• Strong graphic-design skills, with typography and layout being particularly important.

• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy.

• The ability to work quickly when necessary without allowing standards to slip.

• A high level of visual and cultural awareness.

• Confidence with the relevant Adobe Creative Cloud, Final Cut and other relevant applications and professional photographic/video equipment.

• The ability to understand and work within an established visual language while also finding intelligent ways of developing it.

• The confidence and experience to work independently, make good visual decisions and take responsibility for projects.

• Ideas. We want somebody who notices things, brings references to the table, does research, suggests possibilities and contributes creatively rather than simply waiting to be given instructions.

An interest in music is important, but we're equally interested in the wider culture that informs your work — photography, film, books, magazines, fashion, contemporary art, independent publishing, typography and design.

We don't necessarily expect one person to be equally accomplished in every discipline. You might, for example, be an exceptional photographer and designer with somewhat less professional moving-image experience. What matters is that your portfolio demonstrates an exceptional visual eye, genuine ability across disciplines and the potential to develop the areas in which you're less experienced.

PORTFOLIO

A strong portfolio is essential and must be submitted with your application.

We will use portfolios to select candidates for interview, so please make sure yours gives us a good understanding of both the quality and breadth of your work.

In particular, we'd like to see examples of:

• Photography you've conceived and shot yourself.

• Commercial/product or still-life photography where relevant.

• Moving-image work you've shot and/or directed and edited.

• Graphic design demonstrating strong typography and layout.

• Projects where you've developed an idea or visual approach rather than simply executed somebody else's direction.

Please make your own contribution to collaborative projects clear.

We're interested in the finished work, but also in seeing evidence of judgement, consistency and ideas. A small, carefully selected portfolio of excellent work is considerably more useful to us than a very large collection of everything you've ever made.

WORKING AT BOOMKAT

This is a permanent, studio-based position in Manchester for three or four days per week.

Because photography, physical products and working directly with the rest of the team are fundamental to the role, the position is entirely on-site. There is no remote or hybrid working option.

We're deliberately open to either three or four days. This may suit an established creative who wants to retain some time for their own practice or selected freelance work alongside a permanent position.

The full-time equivalent salary is £42,000–£48,000, depending on experience, paid pro rata according to the agreed working pattern.

We're a small independent company, which means this role comes with considerable creative involvement. Good ideas don't have to pass through multiple layers of management: we're looking for somebody experienced enough to contribute them and capable enough to make them happen.