Senior Design Strategist

Monokoto is a strategic design studio based in London and Copenhagen. We work with ambitious global clients across many sectors including consumer tech, audio/video, aerospace, healthcare and more. This gives us the opportunity to create exciting, groundbreaking designs that make a real difference to people.

Our design practice is holistic and bridges both physical and digital worlds.

Monokoto is looking for a Senior Design Strategist to work on a diverse range of projects.

You’ll be working within our multi-disciplinary team, and will be collaborating with clients from all over the world.

The Role

As a design strategist with Monokoto you will contribute to a range of projects spanning digital and physical products, services and experiences. Primarily, your role will focus on research, sense-making, and insight development on behalf of a range of global clients.

• You will help to lead a key stage in projects where we seek to understand the client’s domain - what they do, why they do it, and how customers/users benefit. You will need to rapidly immerse yourself in new industries/contexts - and formulate a plan with Monokoto Directors to uncover the essence of the client’s challenges
• You will conduct organisational and stakeholder research to understand the client’s capabilities, ways of working, organisational culture, processes, technologies - and feed what you learn into the design program with the rest of the team
• You will co-author and facilitate workshops large and small - often with a complex stakeholder mix - to gather information, create new knowledge, set up project phases, and co-design possible design solutions
• You will ensure that the client’s commercial objectives are top of mind when it comes to creating new products and experiences. You will work with project leaders to establish the strategic criteria that need to be met in order for the project to be considered successful
• You will be responsible for research activities where we encounter the client’s target customers / end users directly
• You will plan and conduct research using various methods, collate data and create design-driving insights
• You will shape what you learn during research into clear, concise and action-oriented documentation - highlighting what should or could be designed, for what purpose, with what impact. You will need to be an excellent communicator - both in person and in documentation - cutting through the noise and ambiguity inherent in some projects, to focus on the opportunities and ideas that will delight the end user, and push the client’s commercial ambitions forward
• You will ensure that research insights and the client’s objectives are visible to the design team and acted upon throughout the project
• You will contribute to the overall approach to design strategy at Monokoto; shaping how we conduct research and make sense of our clients’ challenges as a set of repeatable processes.

Skills & Experience

You are right for this role if you have

• Experience (5+ years) working as a strategist or researcher on a range of design and technology projects across digital (app, web) and physical (devices, environments)
• Excellent understanding of human-centred design methodologies
• A clear understanding of digital and physical design processes; e.g. how apps and services are envisioned and made real, or how electronic devices move from concept to finished design
• A proven track record for discovering insights and design opportunities across a range of industries. Ideally, you’ll be able to point to products and services in the market - and explain how your work made them more relevant, more useful
• An ability to plan and conduct a range of research activities leading to relevant information - from in-person workshops to desk-based research
• Excellent ability to synthesise research data into clear insights that connect with clients and design teams
• Excellent in-person and written communication, with enough design skill to bring insights to life, ensuring key information comes across clearly
• Strong desire to work productively as part of a multi-disciplinary design team
• A desire to mentor more junior team members to ensure they are working productively, developing their own skills and refining their working methods