Associate Design Director

Critical Mass•Los Angeles, CA

About The Position

As an Associate Design Director, you bring a strong creative opinion, informed by strategy and past results to lead performance marketing initiatives. Balancing visual language, narrative structure and design process, you develop client and interagency relationships by clearly communicating and justifying concepts. Visual and systematic design woven together with a performance lens is your bread and butter—but you’ve also got strong working knowledge of campaign development, brand development, UX and UI principles, and scalable design system development—all essential in your role. You’re looking to hone your management skills directing the collaborative efforts of a large creative team. And the environment you build for your team fosters professional growth and inspires others to exceed expectations. Most importantly, you embody and embrace our values—to be honest, inspired, driven, passionate and real—in everything you do.

Requirements

4+ years visual communication education or equivalent experience
8+ years design, marketing, or communications interactive work and design leadership experience
4+ years’ Design Systems experience
Experience in a lead design role within a project-based strategic, creative, or technical agency environment
Substantial experience managing and bringing to life performance social creative
A solid understanding of storytelling with the use of video – editing, pacing, motion design excellence
Passion for design and eagerness to collaborate with other creative people
Solid understanding and appreciation for the distinction between creative expression and commercial reality

Responsibilities

Lead the design of a digital design system, both building from established patterns and iterating on new design components to evolve the system
Be a hands-on creative lead with the desire and capability to bring the best out of a design team
Build and maintain creative culture within the design team
Understand skillsets and personalities of team members to find areas for opportunity or improvement
Drive the strategies that address customer needs and business goals across digital channels
Contribute creative solutions and innovations that strengthen both the agency brand and market leadership position
Develop & deliver innovative proposals to capture both account growth and new business opportunities
Promote continuous improvement and accountability by driving Creative discipline and operational excellence and lending industry vertical expertise
Perform strategic account planning with senior management in vertical marketing groups
Conceive and create experience design solutions that fulfill strategic business objectives
Be just as comfortable in the work as leading it. Figma is an extension of your creativity
Effectively communicate creative ideas and strategies to all project stakeholders
Lead and partner with multidisciplinary teams, including all creative disciplines, technology, planning, account and program managers, partners, clients and more
Provide regular team leadership and constructive feedback on all accounts
Develop, monitor, and modify the business unit creative department staffing strategies and plans, including team composition, performance, skills, training, and mentoring
Develop, implement, and monitor quality standards across all creative artifacts and deliverables
Continuously improve Creative methods, problem-solving models, and best practices
Proactively manage the success of production scope, schedules, and budgets
Engage and inform practice leads from media, technology, marketing science, usability, and quality assurance to maximize results and ensure satisfaction
Support and lead Human Resource initiatives with a focus on performance management
Understand, embrace, and communicate corporate mission and values