Digital Artist/Animator for Cognito's Educational Videos

Application deadline

Please note the deadline for applications is 30th May 2025

About us

At Cognito we create educational resources for secondary school students. We have a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Cognitoedu) and a revision platform (https://cognitoedu.org), both of which are used by hundreds of thousands of students. We're looking for an exceptional artist to join our team and help us expand the number of subjects we offer video lessons for.

Please be aware that due to the volume of applications we receive, we are unable to provide any feedback for any candidate who does not pass both parts of the initial application task. We apologise for this in advance.

Job summary & typical workflow

This post is fully remote, and offered on a full-time basis (37.5 hours per week). Our typical working hours are 9 - 5:30, with an hour for lunch between 1-2pm.

In this role, you'll be primarily responsible for creating the videos that helps students learn their schoolwork through our website and Youtube channel. The ideal candidate will therefore be exceptionally competent in the two following areas:
1) Artwork skills & visual taste - you'll often need to create new artwork for a video you're working on. The artwork will have to match our existing aesthetic, and you'll be making hundreds of additional aesthetic choices throughout every video (e.g. designing layouts of information, ensuring visual balance within a scene, colour harmony & colour coding, selecting appropriate levels of artistic detail for decorative or diagrammatic pieces). In cases where you're selecting photos / modifying existing artwork, you'll need a keen sense of whether something looks 'right' or not.

2) Educational graphics theory/visualisation - because your videos are being created in order to teach the viewer, you need to make every decision within the context of how it aids the video in being a useful learning resource. The core challenge of this role is that it is not simply creating a beautiful visual for something, but that you need to design the visuals so that they accurately translate complex, often abstract subject matter, into clear, engaging, and pedagogically-sound visual explanations.

The typical workflow looks something like this:

1) read the script for the given video.

2) layout and animate the information within the script (sometimes editing the script in small ways to allow your video flow to work correctly, if necessary) - also drawing any artwork or diagrams required.

3) pairing your animation to the audio, so that the visual events land in time with the relevant audio parts.

The vast majority of your time will be spent within Adobe After Effects (laying out & animating the video), Adobe Illustrator (creating required artwork/diagrams), and either iMovie or Final Cut Pro (pairing your animated video with the audio). The position is fully remote, and so you'll need to be happy working alone for long periods, and be able to stay motivated, focused, and meticulous without the need for external prompting.

This role also requires someone with strong academic skills, so we are requiring that you have at least one A at A Level, in either Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, English (lit or lang), or History.

Please be assured that you will NOT be writing the script, or be recording any voiceovers as part of this role. The scripts and narration audios will provided to you.

Application process

• Applicants will need to complete an initial application task (15 minutes) in order to be considered. Please see the 'Application task' section for details.
• If you made a sincere attempt at the application task, we will endeavour to reply to you within 7 working days, in order to let you know whether we will be moving forward with your application and asking you to do the second application task (also ~15 mins).
• Assuming a successful second application task, we will ask you to complete a series of paid trials in order to get a more accurate sense of your abilities. Each trial will range between 30 mins - 2 hours, and will be paid at £15 per hour. You will be paid for these trials irrespective of whether we move forward with your application after that trial.
• Following the paid trials, we may invite you to an interview. This will be a 20 - 30 minute informal chat over zoom, just to say hello, learn a bit more about you as a person, and also to answer any questions you may have.
• Depending on the different candidates at this stage, we may offer multiple candidates 1-4 weeks contract work, where we will be asking you to work with us as a contractor, working as close to full-time hours as you can accommodate (paid at £15 per hour again).
• Following that period of contract work, we will offer the successful candidate the job.

Requirements

• Native-level written and spoken English.
• You must live in the UK, and be a tax-resident of the UK.
• You must have As (or grades 7-9) in GCSE Science & English. An A grade in A Level science, maths, english, or history is also required.
• Access to Adobe Illustrator & After Effects for the trial tasks, but be aware we will provide you with an Adobe CC account if you are hired for this role.
• Access to a computer connected to a graphics / drawing tablet (an ipad is not sufficient for this role as we need to use the desktop versions of the software).
• A fast & stable internet connection for uploading video files / video calls. Video calls with camera are mandatory for this role, so please don't apply if you're not happy to do this.
• Fantastic artistic skills, you should be able to draw in perspective, understand how to shade convincingly, and understand how to use line weight, and contrasting shapes to create balanced, cohesive, and beautiful graphics/layouts.
• This role will require someone who is self-motivated, has a brilliant eye for aesthetics, design and layout, and is fantastic at imagining their work from the viewer's perspective. You will need to be meticulous, resourceful, and able to critically analyse your work to decide whether it teaches content well, whilst avoiding potential misconceptions.
• Due to the job being remote, you'll need to be comfortable working independently for long periods of time, and to be able to stay engaged and productive without much oversight.

Application tasks

The application task is split into two different parts, but we will check the first part before asking you to try the second (we will send this to you via follow-up email). Part 1 is linked below, and should take 15 minutes to complete. Please attach the output of part 1 to your application, using the questions & answer slots provided. The link takes you to Notion pages, and depending on where you are viewing this job, you may need to copy and paste the text of the link into your browser.

Part 1 - Art task

Please visit the following link to view Part 1 (link) (https://amadeuscarnegie.notion.site/Application-task-part-1-of-2-art-task-approx-15-mins-056109fd47394c53a34dfdecf791afe8?pvs=4)

Benefits

• £30,000 - £40,000 per annum, depending on experience/ability.
• 30 days paid holiday per year (this figure includes bank holidays).
• As a small company - we offer a friendly and informal environment, and there's the potential to expand your role over the coming years, if that's something you're interested in.
• You'll play an essential part in creating some of the best learning resources in the world. To date, over 300 million questions have been answered on our platform, and our video lessons have been watched over 80 million times. Your skill and expertise will make a real difference to millions of students, and your videos will be made freely available to everyone via YouTube.