Senior Art Director

Location: Southern California preferred | Remote considered

Work Arrangement: Hybrid / Remote flexibility

Position Overview

Our client, a growing creative agency, is seeking a Senior Art Director to join its in-house creative team. This is a highly hands-on role for an experienced Art Director who can develop strong concepts, build compelling client presentations, and personally execute creative at a high level.

The ideal candidate is comfortable moving quickly, collaborating with strong personalities, and balancing multiple priorities without sacrificing creative quality. While the position includes leadership responsibilities, this is not a traditional management-heavy role, expect approximately 70% hands-on creative execution and 30% team leadership and direction.

This opportunity could be a strong fit for either a seasoned Senior Art Director or an Art Director.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead creative development from initial concept through final execution across digital, campaign, presentation, and brand-related work.
• Remain highly hands-on, personally designing and producing creative rather than solely directing others.
• Develop polished client presentations, pitch decks, campaign concepts, and visual storytelling that help bring ideas to life.
• Manage and mentor a small internal creative team of approximately two employees while directing a broader roster of freelance and contract creative talent.
• Partner closely with creative leadership, account teams, and clients to translate business objectives into compelling visual solutions.
• Work efficiently across multiple projects and stakeholders in a fast-moving agency environment.
• Present concepts confidently, receive feedback constructively, and quickly translate direction into stronger creative.
• Help establish and maintain a high creative bar while still meeting aggressive deadlines.
• Incorporate AI-enabled creative tools and workflows into the design process to accelerate ideation, exploration, and production.
• Support creative for major financial-services and consumer-facing brands across digital and traditional channels.
• Motion design experience is a plus, particularly for candidates who can bring campaign concepts to life beyond static creative.

Ideal Background

• 6+ years of progressive experience in Art Direction, Senior Art Direction, or Associate Creative Direction, ideally within an agency or similarly fast-paced creative environment.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating sophisticated art direction, campaign development, digital creative, presentation design, and brand storytelling.
• Comfortable being a player-coach, capable of leading people while still doing the work personally.
• Strong Adobe Creative Suite and modern design-tool proficiency.
• Experience building client-facing pitch decks and presenting creative concepts.
• Demonstrated ability to work quickly while maintaining strong attention to detail and visual quality.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across different personalities, working styles, and seniority levels.
• Familiarity with modern generative AI and creative AI tools and an understanding of how AI can improve creative workflows.
• Motion, animation, or video experience is highly desirable but not required.
• Financial-services, consumer, or highly regulated brand experience is a plus.

What Makes This Opportunity Unique

This is an opportunity to have meaningful creative ownership without stepping away from the craft. The Senior Art Director will have direct influence over major client work, manage a lean creative team, and play an important role in pitches and new creative concepts.

The environment is entrepreneurial, fast-moving, and collaborative. The team is looking for someone who can think like a creative leader but execute like a hands-on designer — someone who can develop the big idea, build the deck, present the thinking, and help bring the final work across the finish line.

Location & Travel

Southern California candidates are preferred, particularly those within reasonable proximity to Orange County. The team is also open to strong West Coast candidates working remotely who are comfortable traveling to Southern California approximately once per quarter for team collaboration.

Salary: $100-120k

Benefits:

• Competitive medical benefits
• 10 days PTO
• 5 sick days
• Remote flexibility for qualified West Coast candidates
• Opportunity to work directly with senior creative leadership and major national brands