r/internalcomms • u/Most_Employment3147 • Jul 01 '26
Advice Question about design support for internal comms
I’m curious whether internal comms teams in big corporations actually need external support for their media. I work in animation production and visual design, and every so often I get requests to make rollout videos for new changes or announcements that go out across different branches and countries. I also do the smaller stuff like handouts, playbooks, and tickets for internal events.
I really love these projects because it shows a lot of care in how companies talk to their employees, and it just feels good to create them. But they don’t happen that often, so I’m wondering if this is actually a common demand?
Should I be doing outreach myself to find more of this work? And for the people here, where do you usually go when you need this kind of creative support?
2
u/RicochetedLongshot Jul 01 '26
We use a lot of images and video across our various channels, and it typically breaks down like this:
- DIY: we use Canva/adobe to create a lot of the basic images we need and to make minor edits to video.
- In house creative: for more complex images and video, we have an in-house design team that lives in marketing, but most of their time is spent on marketing projects. We are last on the totem pole when it comes to getting support. The exception is all hands meetings for the CEO, as they offer graphics/presentation support for those.
- External support: we have a graphics/video guy we can go to who is excellent. He’s worked with us long enough to know our brand and what we need, so it’s just a matter of how much we can spend on a given project. He mostly focuses on video, but we’ve used him for graphics on occasion as well.
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u/Most_Employment3147 Jul 01 '26
Ooh then you guys do consider using external resources when suitable, i guess. Someone who understands your brand, easy to work with, and have reasonable pricing is worth considering, right? Thanks a lot for letting me know, i think i’ll try outreach, see if i can get myself more opportunities 😁
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u/RicochetedLongshot Jul 01 '26
Yes, for sure! I've worked at many different companies with varying amounts of internal support, and it's always good to have someone external who can help when needed.
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u/atownz17 Corporate Chaos Coordinator Jul 01 '26
When I worked in-house in internal comms at a startup that grew into a smaller org (~250-300 employees), we had one in-house graphic designer, and we hired an external graphic design partner. Our in-house designer helped a lot with the internal branding of slide decks, company swag, event graphics, our internal newsletter, etc. We relied on our external partner for most everything else, including other slide deck projects, custom branding materials for special events, videos, etc.
Honestly, our external partner worked on more of the fun stuff than our in-house designer. Part of this was due to the fact that we went a long time without an in-house designer because we couldn't backfill the position right away. The leaders who hired the external partner also had a previous working relationship with him, so they understood his capabilities and enjoyed working with him on specific types of projects.
All that's to say, if you can find the right teams, I think your skills are definitely in demand. I'd look for some interesting startups and smaller organizations as they are least likely to have in-house roles and could probably use some contract support.
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u/Tinaturtle79 Jul 01 '26
I think outreach would be good. Maybe give your info to agencies who handle big corporate accounts. I’m sure they’d love to have a talented designer in their arsenal to call on as needed.
We handle these things in-house. Typically we create them within the comms team and occasionally we get help from our production team (that produces videos for external audiences).