Civic Designer, Los Angeles

Civic Designer, Los Angeles

The Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University (the Center) seeks a Civic Designer, Los Angeles to support key efforts under the City of Los Angeles Deputy Mayor, Office of Strategic Partnerships.

The Civic Designer will play a central role in deploying design-based innovation approaches to support the city's efforts to accelerate transformative city policy, infrastructure, and innovation efforts that generate lasting benefits for all Angelenos, while fostering civic pride, inclusive public-private collaboration, and long-term urban resilience to advance Los Angeles unprecedented recovery from the January 2025 wildfires and hosting of three consecutive global sporting events2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl, and 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in design methodology and the ability to use and apply intentional design processes that includes research, ideation, and delivery with key stakeholders, including community members, centered in the process. Ideally, they will also have experience in designing and delivering impactful public sector programs or services. The Civic Designer is an employee of Johns Hopkins University and based in Los Angeles City Hall. The Civic Designer will report to the Civic Strategist.

The first of its kind in the world, the Center aims to advance the field of public sector innovation by marrying cutting-edge practice with world-class research to transform the culture of government, deliver exceptional results for residents, and inspire trust in public service.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

• Guide impact delivery team colleagues, together with collaborators in government and in the community, through a rigorous process, including research, synthesis and framework development, idea generation, prototyping, and testing.
• Design, plan, and deliver qualitative "design" research.
• Make research findings relevant and impactful through a variety of formats such as slide decks, stories, videos, experiences, exhibits, and design artifacts like journey maps, service blueprints, and personas.
• Employ user research best practices to create a seamless experience for city leaders, and collaborators in government and in the community.
• Develop templates, tools, and methods that government can use to improve service and program delivery.
• Create visual frameworks like journey maps, service blueprints, and ecosystem maps that help clarify complex challenges in human behaviors, relationships, workflow, and processes.
• Engage and collaborate deeply with local community organizations dedicated to civic activation and community benefit.
• Plan and execute co-creation workshops with stakeholders to generate the most viable solutions for the given problem.
• Stay up to date with trends in civic design and public innovation and develop materials spreading best practices and cutting-edge research
• Prepare reports, summaries, presentations, visuals, recommendations, and other work products.
• Present work products to city leaders, community members, BCPI staff, and other partners.
• Support the team and other city government colleagues in agile ways of working, including a high proficiency in using tools like Slack, Figma, Miro, Google Workspace, and work management software like Asana.

Special Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Ability to apply a civic design process that includes research, ideation, and delivery with key stakeholders and community members centered in the process.
• Knowledge of design-based innovation methodologies, including expertise in determining when and how to use specific approaches, frameworks, deliverables, and facilitation methods.
• Superior organizational skills and ability to set priorities and respond quickly as priorities change.
• Strong interpersonal skills with an ability to build good relationships with peers and to interact with varied stakeholders.
• Ability to deliver high quality work in a dynamic, political environment.
• Strong ability to incorporate design research and qualitative research into a mixed methods approach to produce insights.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to collect and synthesize information and provide summary reports.
• Excellent content creation and writing skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet tight deadlines.
• Ability to work both cooperatively within a team and independently.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in related discipline.
• Five years of design experience, including instructional, strategic, business, and product design, or related experience.
• Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond HS Diploma/Graduation Equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.

Preferred Qualifications

• Graduate Degree in Instructional Design, Instructional Technology, Education, Applied Anthropology, Demography, Ethnography, User Experience Design or Research, Program Design or related field.
• Experience conducting user research and translating results into actionable insights.
• A clear understanding of the types of challenges municipal governments typically face, either through direct experience working in government or in organizations that collaborate closely with governments.
• Experience working with community, government, non-profit, or private sector leaders.
• A customer service orientation and interest in and commitment to building solid relationships with colleagues and partners within government and in the community.
• Demonstrated experience in working with people from varied backgrounds and a commitment to engaging with a wide range of residents, subject-matter experts, and partners.
• A history of using service design and/or product design to scale initiatives or strategies, particularly in large organizations.