Freelance Senior Graphic Designer

Freelance Senior Graphic Designer Contract / Project-Based · Remote-Friendly (Chicago/Evanston, IL or St. Louis, MO preferred)

About Us Creative Edge, Inc. — operating in part as NeigerDesign, A Creative Edge Company — is a full-service marketing and creative agency with offices in Cape Girardeau, MO, St. Louis, MO, and Evanston, IL and a distributed team. We work across branding and design, digital marketing, video production, and web services for clients ranging from local businesses to large healthcare non-profits to national associations and organizations. As our workload grows, we're expanding our trusted bench of freelance senior graphic designers who can integrate seamlessly with our in-house creative team and step into projects as needed.

The Role We're looking for an experienced, versatile graphic designer who is equally comfortable developing a new creative concept an extending an established visual system.

You'll work directly with our Creative Director and internal design team on a range of client assignments, including brand identity, print and editorial design, marketing collateral, presentations, digital creative, and production.

This is a hands-on senior design role. We're looking for someone who can take a thoughtful creative brief or established direction, understand the objective, make strong design decisions, and carry the work through to a polished, production-ready result without requiring extensive art direction along the way.

What You'll Do

• Develop original design concepts based on creative briefs, client objectives, and brand strategy.

• Extend established creative directions and brand systems across new materials and applications.

• Design print and digital collateral, including brochures, reports, publications, sell sheets, signage, trade show materials, presentations, advertising, and digital assets.

• Support brand identity projects, including logo development and refinement, visual identity systems, brand guidelines, and related applications.

• Take projects from initial concept through refinement, production, and final delivery.

• Prepare accurate, print-ready files and coordinate with printers and production vendors when needed.

• Work collaboratively with our Creative Director and internal team, incorporating feedback while bringing your own design judgment and problem-solving to the work.

• Manage assigned work and deadlines reliably within a fast-moving agency environment.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of professional graphic design experience, with agency experience strongly preferred.

• A strong portfolio demonstrating both conceptual thinking and polished execution across a range of brand identity, print, editorial, and digital work.

• Strong typography, composition, visual hierarchy, and attention to detail.

• Advanced proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud, particularly InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

• Experience taking print projects through production and preparing files for professional printing.

• Ability to work within established brand guidelines while also developing original visual concepts when the assignment calls for it.

• Comfortable working independently from a creative brief or established direction without requiring highly detailed art direction.

• Strong organizational skills, communication, and reliability in a deadline-driven agency environment.

• Experience with presentation design and platforms such as PowerPoint and Canva is a plus.

Engagement Details

• Contract structure: Project-based Statement of Work (SOW) under a standing Master Service Agreement; this is not a W-2 position.

• Location: Remote-friendly. Designers in the Evanston/Chicago metro area are preferred for occasional in-person collaboration.

• Engagements: Assignments may range from individual deliverables and production support to multi-week campaigns and larger creative projects.

• Rate: Based on experience and project scope; engagements may be quoted hourly or by project.

• Workflow: Freelancers receive scoped access to relevant project tools, files, brand guidelines, and a designated internal point of contact.

Interested? Click "Apply for this Job" and send us your portfolio, résumé or professional background, location, availability, and typical freelance rate or rate range. We're especially interested in seeing work that demonstrates how you think as a designer—not just how you execute. Portfolios should include examples of brand identity, print/editorial design, and broader campaign or marketing applications rather than primarily social media content.

Questions about this role can be directed to Zack Koeller at zack@creativeedge.tv.