Job title: Lead Designer
Are you interested in re-imagining how stories are told on the phone? By telling stories in the form of text-message conversations, Hooked has made reading accessible to a mass audience with 40 million readers in the past year. We’ve pioneered a new format called chat fiction, which has been widely emulated and has been recognized by Apple as a Top Trend for 2017. But we’re just at the beginning of re-inventing storytelling for the mobile device. The next Harry Potter won’t be a book; the next iconic story will be a mobile-first experience, and we believe that story will be launched on Hooked.
If imagining the future of story telling excites you, if you believe that the best ideas are often the simplest, if you believe that only the highest level of design thinking will allow us to break stories with massive cultural impact - then we would love to hear from you.
Job Description
How can reading be made more engaging and fun on the phone? This is the fundamental question you will be asking. It will translate into every aspect of the Design process including visual design and UI / UX, whether within the app or anywhere we launch our stories. The Hooked brand is playful and a bit spooky. At the same time, we are a premium entertainment product with millions of subscribers. How does this translate into a brand that works now and in the future? This mix of high and low, of inventing new things and perfecting the details of what we are currently doing will be your core responsibility. We share a restless curiosity and willingness to experiment. We are students of human behavior and often discuss the why of things. Design thinking is fundamental to our company and product strategy. Great design, like most real art, is a combination of creativity and craft, imagination and practice. If this way of thinking and working resonates with you, please be in touch.
A note about how we work. We are a small team with a huge footprint. This is only possible because we all share an intrinsic motivation to crack the code on mobile storytelling. At the same time, this is a fundamentally creative pursuit. It’s not about grinding out hours unproductively, it’s about finding the mental space and time to have true breakthroughs. We believe everyone is at their most productive and creative when they control their schedule. For this reason we primarily work remotely. We have an office in the Mission district of SF where we meet a couple of times a week. Of course certain things are best done in-person. In sum, how and when you work is largely up to you. We each have our own style; I’m sure you do too.
Qualifications
- A degree in Graphic Design or related field from a top design program
- 4+ years experience at a design firm, ad agency, digital agency or startup
- Significant experience designing for mobile, preferably consumer facing
- Comfortable with visual design, UI / UX and art direction
About Hooked
Hooked is redefining fiction for the Snapchat generation. Our mission is to save reading by making it as engaging for young people as social media.
The Hooked app has reached 40MM readers in the past year and has hit the #1 spot in the App Store in 25 countries including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and S. Korea.
We are currently a very small team -- this would be an opportunity to take full ownership of all things design at Hooked and, in the future, to build a design team as we continue to grow.
We're building the media company of the future - the next Netflix, the next Disney.
Hooked has raised funding from top investors in Silicon Valley and Hollywood, including Greylock, SV Angel, Cowboy Ventures, William Morris Endeavor, Sound Ventures (Ashton Kutcher), Greg Silverman (ex-President of Warner Bros), Charles King and others.
This would be an opportunity for you to join a high-growth, venture-backed startup in the early days.
We're based in SF but mostly work remotely. We typically meet in our office in the Mission a couple of times a week.
Some recent press about Hooked:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-app-that-has-younger-readers-hooked-dcw67m837