Agency Brand Design Expert

$80–150/hrrate as listed

Mercor is hiring agency-trained brand designers to write grading rubrics for real-world design briefs and score AI and human work samples against them. The output is written judgment — defensible, reproducible critique — not deliverables.

Summary, eligibility guidance and screening preparation are prepared by Sidequest from the platform's posting. Check the source listing before applying.

What the work actually involves

You will spend most of your time doing two things. First, building task-specific grading criteria for real brand design briefs — identity systems and guidelines, logos, campaign and marketing visuals, packaging concepts, presentation and layout work, digital and social assets, and brand messaging and positioning. A usable rubric here is not "good typography, 1–5"; it specifies what a passing hierarchy looks like for this brief, what a scalable mark must survive, where a positioning statement fails against the stated audience.

Second, you score completed work samples — some AI-generated, some human — against those criteria and write the justification for every score. The written argument is the deliverable. Reviewers are checking whether a peer reading your justification could arrive at the same number without you in the room. Expect senior-reviewer feedback, calibration against other designers, and fast iteration cycles.

What the platform screens for

Agency provenance, specifically. The brief names Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Landor, Collins, IDEO as the reference class. In-house and enterprise design teams are explicitly not the target profile. Expect your resume and portfolio to be read for studio names, roles, and client work.
Craft depth under follow-up. Screens push past vocabulary. You should be able to explain why a particular type pairing fails at small sizes, or how you'd diagnose a logo that reads well at poster scale and dies as a favicon.
Critique that sounds like a creative director in review — precise, prioritized, and separable from personal taste.
Consistency. Two similar samples should get similar scores from you, with the reasoning tracing back to the rubric rather than to instinct.

Logistics

Fully remote and asynchronous, contract engagement through Mercor. Observed rates for this posting run $80–150/hr, set at onboarding based on background and calibration performance — as observed, not guaranteed. Task volume on evaluation projects fluctuates; most contributors treat it as part-time (roughly 10–20 hours a week) alongside client work. Copywriting, messaging, and prior AI-evaluation experience are listed as pluses, not requirements.

What they look for

5+ years professional brand, visual, or graphic design experience
Background at independent brand/design agencies (Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Landor, Collins, IDEO tier)
Craft fluency in typography, layout, hierarchy, color, composition, and identity systems
Exceptionally strong written critique and justification writing
Ability to build task-specific, reproducible grading criteria
Brand messaging, positioning, and copywriting experience (strong plus)

Before you apply

Would you pass this screen?

Drawn from what this listing actually requires. Answered in your browser — nothing is sent to us, and we do not store your answers.

Do you have at least 5 years of professional experience in brand design, visual design, graphic design, or UI/UX design?
Professional brand or design experience · required
Have you worked as a designer at a recognized world-class independent brand or design agency such as Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Landor, Collins, IDEO, or comparable firm?
World-class agency background · required
Is your primary experience in one of these areas: Creative Director, Brand Designer (logo/visual identity), Web Designer (UI/UX), or Graphic Designer?
Core design discipline · required
Do you have a portfolio or work samples you can share that demonstrate your professional brand or design work?
Portfolio availability · required
Do you have prior experience with AI training, evaluation, data labeling, or human-data annotation projects?
AI evaluation experience · preferred
Do you have hands-on experience with brand messaging, positioning, or copywriting, including audience or competitor research?
Brand messaging and strategy experience · preferred

0 of 6 answered

Included with this listing

Interview prep — 11 questions

Matched to what this platform's screening actually measures. Answer each out loud in 60–90 seconds: claim → concrete example → implication.

What it tests: Whether you've actually designed complete brand systems (not just executed someone else's direction) and can articulate the intentional choices that hold a system together.
A strong answer: Name a specific project with clear deliverables (logo, typography, color palette, applications), explain the strategic or audience reasoning behind key decisions, and describe how you documented consistency rules so others could apply them correctly.
Where people lose it: Describing a project vaguely, crediting the concept to someone else, or focusing on execution tasks (e.g., 'I made the mockups') rather than the design thinking that shaped the system.