What are the responsibilities and job description for the Design Traffic Manager position at Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)?
Overview
We are seeking a highly organized and communicative Design Traffic Manager to support our design team within a dynamic agency environment. This role will act as a key liaison between the design team and strategy, video, and experiential teams while ensuring that projects are executed efficiently and meet high creative standards.
Reporting to the Design Manager, the Design Traffic Manager plays a critical role in coordinating and optimizing the workflow of design projects. This role bridges communication between the design team and other departments, ensuring projects are effectively planned, resourced, and executed on schedule. The ideal candidate is highly organized, proactive, and adept at using project management tools to track progress, manage team capacity, and streamline processes. They excel at balancing creative needs with operational efficiency, identifying potential roadblocks, and implementing solutions to keep projects moving smoothly. Additionally, they oversee file and asset management, contribute to quality assurance, and continuously refine workflows to enhance team productivity.
This role is pivotal in maintaining the design team’s efficiency, ensuring resources are optimized, and helping deliver impactful creative work that supports our agency’s video, strategy, and experiential clients.
Key Responsibilities
We are seeking a highly organized and communicative Design Traffic Manager to support our design team within a dynamic agency environment. This role will act as a key liaison between the design team and strategy, video, and experiential teams while ensuring that projects are executed efficiently and meet high creative standards.
Reporting to the Design Manager, the Design Traffic Manager plays a critical role in coordinating and optimizing the workflow of design projects. This role bridges communication between the design team and other departments, ensuring projects are effectively planned, resourced, and executed on schedule. The ideal candidate is highly organized, proactive, and adept at using project management tools to track progress, manage team capacity, and streamline processes. They excel at balancing creative needs with operational efficiency, identifying potential roadblocks, and implementing solutions to keep projects moving smoothly. Additionally, they oversee file and asset management, contribute to quality assurance, and continuously refine workflows to enhance team productivity.
This role is pivotal in maintaining the design team’s efficiency, ensuring resources are optimized, and helping deliver impactful creative work that supports our agency’s video, strategy, and experiential clients.
Key Responsibilities
- Coordination & Workflow Management
- Serve as a liaison between the design team and other departments, ensuring seamless communication and collaboration.
- Manage the intake of internal projects and establish clear timelines and expectations in partnership with the Design Manager.
- Create and maintain schedules tailored to design-specific tasks such as concepting, mockups, and revisions, ensuring deadlines are met.
- Track project progress, routing deliverables for review and approval while flagging potential risks or delays.
- Develop and document workflows, templates, and task assignments to optimize design processes.
- Resource & Capacity Management
- Monitor team capacity using tools like Noko to identify gaps or overburdened resources, reallocating tasks as needed.
- Allocate design resources to projects based on team skills and availability, balancing workloads to maintain productivity and quality.
- Vet potential contract resources, manage onboarding, and oversee external vendor relationships.
- File & Asset Management
- Oversee the organization and maintenance of the team’s file systems, including Dropbox and the Creative Asset & Brands library.
- Ensure team and vendor access to up-to-date brand materials and assets.
- Archive files and assets systematically, opening and closing projects as needed.
- Process Improvement & Reporting
- Assess and enhance design workflows to boost efficiency and streamline feedback and approval processes.
- Develop training materials and conduct training sessions on best practices for the team and cross-functional partners.
- Collect and analyze metrics related to design workflows, such as turnaround times and revision counts, to inform performance and future planning.
- Content Review & Quality Assurance
- Assist with content proofing and approval processes to maintain consistency, quality, and alignment with client brand guidelines.
- Collaborate with the design leadership to conduct quality checks on deliverables before final submission.
- Strong organizational and project management skills, with experience using tools like Monday.com or similar platforms.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to liaise across departments and facilitate collaboration.
- Experience in workflow development, resource allocation, and capacity management.
- Familiarity with file and asset management systems (e.g., Dropbox).
- Ability to identify inefficiencies and implement process improvements effectively.
- A proactive mindset, capable of juggling multiple priorities while maintaining attention to detail.
- Familiarity with creative workflows in an agency setting.
- Basic knowledge of design, branding, and creative production processes.
- Previous experience onboarding and managing external vendors or contractors.
- This is a full-time salaried position based in Atlanta, GA (flexible location) and commensurate with experience. We are accepting applications from candidates currently residing in the United States.
