Art Director Jobs

Department: Creative

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Vancouver

Description

Hi there, we're Article. 👋 We're an online furniture company creating remarkably better furniture experiences one sofa at a time. And as the Art Director, you'll be the creative lead for every aspect of Article's creative projects from the kick-off to execution. You'll provide the direction and overarching vision, while supervising and guiding your team.

Why We Need You

You'll apply your understanding of product marketing principles and deep desire to enhance the customer's experience with every brand interaction, at any scale. You see the marriage of design and copy as seamless, and ensure the nuance of every image selection and crop is considered. You'll be responsible for ideating, creating, and developing creative deliverables outlined in the brief in a holistic and integrated solution.

Along with our in-house production team, you'll provide art direction to photo and video shoots. You have experience working on omni-channel marketing campaigns unified by an overarching concept or narrative from email campaigns to eCommerce, paid advertising and organic social media.

Why Article?

As a Particle (people of Article), you will have a high level of autonomy to solve challenging, meaningful problems the best way you can. That means you're trusted to explore solutions you believe will work best (you're the expert, after all). You'll do all this while growing your skills within a company that is redefining the furniture industry.

We're a hybrid team so you can work from your house, our office, a coffee shop, or wherever you're inspired. This team currently comes into the office 60% of the time (Tuesday-Thursday) to meet, collaborate, brainstorm and create in-person.

What You'll Do

You will lead and mentor a team of three graphic designers inspiring and motivating them to maintain high standards and performance, and freshness in the work and the way we approach and solve problems.

On Top Of That, Your Role Will Consist Of

Creative Strategy Implementation: roughly 50% of your time

• The implementation and support of creative strategy to meet Marketing and company-level objectives
• Communicate concepts, designs, and ideas succinctly, with a clear narrative that is tailored to the audience
• Working cross-functionally across the business including communicating concepts, and designs presenting creative work, high level of creative exploration and innovation
• Working collaboratively with other creative disciplines to produce high-quality creative work, always looking for opportunities to explore and innovate within the boundaries of project and brand parameters. Recommend system improvements and efficiencies, where applicable

Workflow Management: 25% of your time

• Managing creative delivery against briefs and project positioning from Marketing partners and business unit leads
• Exercising strong project management skills to report on progress of projects at major stages of their conception, creation, and execution
• Management and recommendation of tools, resources, measurements, etc. to support the growth and evolution of our creative work

Professional Development: 25% of your time

• Dedicated time for personal professional development plans
• Creating and monitoring development: team professional development plans, goal setting, performance management, reviews, weekly check-ins
• The development and guidance of designers, utilizing performance management tools and guiding principles
• Active engagement, coaching and development for direct reports

Who You Are

The ideal candidate will have spent considerable time working as a Senior Graphic Designer, and then as a hands-on Art Director who transitioned to that role at least two years ago. You may have experience on the agency side and then have moved into an in-house team. You should have a passion for the role of a brand guardian/steward, and steering a brand identity with authority and responsibility for its correct and consistent application.

• A collaborative and strategic leadership mindset — You like to ask why!
• Experience collaborating with UX/UI teams to develop information architecture
• Strong understanding of Adobe Creative Cloud software, Figma (or similar prototyping tools) and project management tools
• A background in building brand identity systems, and the development of comprehensive brand guidelines documents (including definition and writing of overarching principles of use for applications and components), is highly desirable.
• 7+ years of experience as a senior graphic designer either in-house or in an agency setting, and ideally 2+ years working as an Art Director
• Excellent graphic design and typography skills with extreme attention to detail
• Experience and familiarity with integrating copy and brand voice into the final deliverables. We view their combination as seamless and holistic, not a handoff or relay.
• Experience working in Marketing Communications channels (email, ecomm/web, social media, advertising).
• Understanding of the principles of creative project planning, process, reviews and approvals, while being able to adapt the creative process specifically and appropriately to each project
• Passion for and understanding of the furniture, interior design industry, industrial design, or decoration/styling is an advantage

Perks & Benefits

• We offer stock options to reinforce "Ownership Mindset"
• We offer access to excellent dental and health benefits packages, plus a health/lifestyle spending account for your total physical and mental well-being
• A dog-friendly office. If you have a well-behaved, well-socialized pup, they're welcome too
• The Article HQ is a converted warehouse, an open layout, well stocked kitchens filled with snacks, premium coffees and teas (and ALL the milks)
• Our workspace is flexible. Choose where you sit - work from an Article sofa, your assigned desk, one of our thoughtfully staged collaboration spaces, or a private meeting room
• We want you to experience the obsession our customers have for Article furniture. You'll enjoy a 45% discount (15% for friends and family, too) on our whole product offering
• When you're in the Vancouver office (3 days per week), we'll think you'll love:
• You'll start with at least 29 days off between vacation, wellness days, holidays and an Inclusion and Diversity Day
• Onsite fitness equipment, change rooms with showers and bike storage

#INDARTICLE