About the School of Human Development (SHD)
The School of Human Development (SHD) at IIHS focuses on social transformation. The School understands social transformation as a set of processes that are rooted in, and seek to directly address:
- Inequality in social status and substantive rights based on identity;
- The absence of material and economic dignity for the urban majority; and
- Inequities in political presence, recognition and participation.
The School’s core focus areas are:
- Decent work;
- Affordable housing;
- Social inequality;
- Social protection;
- Urban health;
- Community mobilization;
- Care Infrastructure.
Job Description
The IIHS School of Human Development (SHD) is looking for a skilled and versatile design illustrator who can translate text, research outputs, project insights, and complex ideas into meaningful, high-quality illustrations and visual communication assets.
This is a mid-level individual contributor role suited to someone with strong illustration ability, sound visual thinking, and the capacity to work across multiple projects. The role requires the ability to understand research-led and text-heavy material, identify the core idea, and create illustrations and visual communication outputs that are clear, accurate, engaging, and appropriate for different audiences.
The incumbent will work primarily on illustration-led outputs, while also supporting graphic design requirements where needed and helping adapt developed outputs into other formats for dissemination, such as social media assets, presentation visuals, web graphics, explainers, posters, event material or, and other communication formats.
This is a contractual engagement for an initial term of 6 months, renewable on mutual consent and based on performance.
Activities and Tasks
Responsibilities would include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Illustration and visual interpretation:
- Translating written content, research findings, project outputs, reports, briefs and conceptual material into high-quality illustrations;
- Developing illustrations that communicate complex ideas clearly, without losing accuracy, nuance or context;
- Creating visual assets for publications, reports, toolkits, explainers, presentations, websites, events, campaigns and social media;
- Working across multiple illustration styles and formats while maintaining quality, consistency and relevance to the brief;
- Building illustration approaches or visual systems for specific projects, publications or campaigns;
- Reading and interpreting text-heavy or research-led material to identify key messages, visual opportunities and communication priorities;
- Converting abstract, technical or specialised content into accessible,engaging, and visual storytelling;
- Graphic design and visual communication support:
- Supporting graphic design requirements for selected outputs, including layouts, infographics, diagrams, icons, social media creatives, presentation assets and communication collateral;
- Working with existing brand guidelines and visual systems while bringing fresh and thoughtful visual ideas;
- Ensuring that illustration and design outputs are suitable for the intended platform, format, and audience;
- Preparing clean, organised and production-ready files for digital and print use;
- Dissemination and format adaptation (as required):
- Adapting developed visual outputs into multiple formats for wider dissemination;
- Translating illustrations, report visuals or project outputs into social media creatives, presentation slides, web banners, posters, event displays, newsletters or other communication formats;
- Reworking visual material for different levels of detail, from long-form publications to short-form digital communication;
- Ensuring that adapted outputs retain the original meaning and quality while becoming suitable for the specific channel or audience;
- Collaboration and delivery:
- Working closely with teams across the IIHS School of Human Development, as well as the Communications and Design team;
- Managing multiple assignments across projects, formats and timelines;
- Maintaining organised working files, version control and clear documentation of visual assets;
- Delivering work on time, with attention to detail and readiness for publication or dissemination;
- Providing support to other IIHS activities including academics, research, training, practice, operations and others;
- Participating in all activities of institution-building at IIHS; carrying out tasks as assigned by IIHS; and travelling on IIHS work within or outside the country as and when needed.
Structure and Reporting
The candidate will report to the Senior Consultant – Research at IIHS and will be required to collaborate effectively with a diverse group of internal teams and external individuals/ organisations, and students.
Person Specification
The ideal candidate should have:
- A Bachelors or Masters degree, diploma or equivalent professional training in illustration, visual communication, graphic design, fine arts, applied arts or a related field
- 5 – 10 years of relevant professional work in illustration, visual communication or design; prior experience with research institutions, universities, non-profits, development sector organisations, policy organisations, media, publishing or knowledge-led organisations is preferred;
- A strong portfolio demonstrating illustration skill, visual thinking, versatility and design sensitivity;
- Experience creating visual assets from written briefs, reports, articles, research outputs or conceptual material; experience in editorial illustration, research communication, public communication, infographics, explainer-led visuals or educational material is preferred.
- The ability to work across multiple projects and deliver high-quality outputs within agreed timelines;
- The ability to work independently as an individual contributor, while collaborating effectively with teams.
- Strong attention to detail and sensitivity to tone, context and audience.
- Ability to balance creativity with accuracy, especially when working with research-led material.
- Familiarity with themes related to human development, education, livelihoods, health, inequality, gender, social protection, cities, climate or public policy would be useful, but is not mandatory;
- Software skills:
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe InDesign
- Procreate or equivalent digital illustration tools
- Figma, Canva or similar collaborative design tools
- PowerPoint or Google Slides for presentation-related assets
- Knowledge of motion graphics, basic animation, web-ready illustration formats or accessibility-aware design would be an added advantage.
Portfolio requirement
Applicants must submit a portfolio along with their application. The portfolio should ideally demonstrate:
- Original illustration work across different styles;
- Examples of translating complex ideas, articles, reports, research outputs or briefs into visuals;
- Editorial, publication, campaign, social media or explainer illustrations;
- Graphic design work, including layouts, infographics, presentation visuals or digital creatives;
- Examples of adapting one idea or visual system into different formats, where available;
- Process work, if available, showing how concepts were developed from brief to final output.
Applications without a portfolio may not be considered.
This is a contractual engagement for an initial term of 6 months, renewable on mutual consent and based on performance This offer is on an exclusive basis, which implies that other professional assignments (whether compensated or not) that bear a potential conflict of interest with IIHS cannot be undertaken.
The search will remain open until the position is filled.
Location
This position is based in Bengaluru and may entail travel to other locations in India.
Review and Assessment
The role and performance of the incumbent shall be subject to normal review and assessment systems at IIHS.
Diversity Policy
IIHS is an equal opportunity employer that encourages women, people with disabilities and those from economically and socially excluded communities with the requisite skills and qualifications to apply for positions.
