Freelance Designer (Illustration & Visual)

What is the role?

Protium is looking for a freelance designer to support our internal visual work on a flexible, project-based basis. The work is varied: blog graphics, internal document standardisation, branding and imagery, promotional design, and other ad-hoc visual work as it comes up.

This is a fully remote contract role with no fixed monthly commitment — we engage you per project as work arises. We’re based in Claremont, Cape Town, and while remote is fine, Cape Town-based designers have a slight edge for the occasional in-person workshop or kickoff session.

About Protium

Protium is a security-first software development company based in Claremont, South Africa.
We build robust, scalable, future-proof software with a strong emphasis on engineering standards, clean delivery, practical architecture, and long-term maintainability.

Our work is primarily focused on building high-quality software systems for clients in the financial services sector (but not limited to). We care about how our work looks as much as how it works, and we need a designer who can help our visual output keep pace with our engineering standards.

Working model

• Fully remote
• Contractor / freelance — engaged per project, no fixed monthly hours
• Cape Town preferred but not required — useful for the occasional in-person workshop or kickoff
• Async-friendly — clear briefs, clear deliverables, clear feedback loops

About you

You’re a designer with a strong visual eye and the range to flex across different kinds of work. Your sweet spot is illustration, graphics, and brand-aligned visual design, but you’re also comfortable touching light UI or layout work when a project calls for it.

You take a brief, ask good questions, and deliver work that doesn’t need to be art-directed line by line. You think about consistency, brand alignment, and the audience the work is going to. You iterate on feedback without ego, and you communicate clearly when you disagree.

You can work independently on small projects without needing constant check-ins, but you also know when to surface a question early rather than burn hours guessing.

What you’ll do

Work varies project to project. A representative mix:

• Blog graphics — hero images, in-article illustrations, social share assets
• Internal document standardisation — templates, layouts, and visual systems for proposals, reports, and internal docs
• Branding & imagery — extending and applying the Protium brand across new contexts
• Promotional design — campaign visuals, event collateral, social content
• Ad-hoc visual work — slide decks, diagrams, one-off illustrations, light UI mockups when needed

Requirements

• A strong portfolio demonstrating illustration, graphic design, and brand-aligned visual work. This matters more than anything else on this list.
• Range across illustration / graphic work, with the ability to handle basic layout and UI work when needed.
• Ability to take a written brief and deliver without needing constant direction.
• Reliable communication and predictable turnaround times. We don’t need 24/7 availability, we do need predictability.
• Comfortable collaborating through shared design files (Figma, Drive, Dropbox, etc.) — tool-agnostic, judged on output.
• Based in South Africa or able to work effectively in South African time zones.

Nice-to-have (not required)

• Cape Town based — useful for the occasional in-person workshop or kickoff session.
• Experience designing for B2B, financial services, or professional services audiences.
• Experience extending an existing brand system, not just creating from scratch.
• Light UI/UX experience — Figma, web layouts, basic prototypes.
• Motion or animation skills (Lottie, After Effects, or similar).
• Experience producing assets for both digital and print.

Compensation

We work on agreed project rates or hourly rates depending on the brief — whichever makes more sense for the work. Rates negotiated based on experience, scope, and turnaround expectations.

Hiring process (what to expect)

1. Portfolio review — share your work; we review for fit
2. Short intro call — get-to-know-you, talk about how you like to work
3. Optional: small paid trial brief — a real project at agreed rate, so we can see how we work together before any longer-term engagement

We aim to keep the process light and respectful of your time.

How to apply

Send us:

• a link to your portfolio (essential — we hire on output)
• a short intro about how you like to work, the kinds of projects you enjoy, and your typical availability
• your rates or rate expectations (hourly, project-based, or both)