Creative Enterprise Mentor​/Conifer Design

Creative Director/Mentor Position

Conifer is seeking a Creative Director/Mentor to provide creative leadership and professional mentorship for the studio. This is a hands-on role for a practicing designer who can raise the quality of the work, sharpen the studio's professional standards, and mentor students to grow its client base.

The Creative Director mentors a small team of student designers, reviewing their work, offering constructive feedback, and modeling the standards and practices of a professional design career.

Responsibilities include:

• Creative leadership and critique. Meet individually with student designers to review work in progress, provide clear and actionable creative feedback, and hold the studio to professional standards of craft and execution.
• Team development. Lead a regular studio meeting to align the team, distribute and prioritize work, and build the habits of a functioning design practice — file management, version control, presenting to clients, receiving critique.
• Client acquisition and development. Work with students to identify prospective clients, initiate outreach, and participate in early client conversations. Work with students to help position Conifer in the regional market as an independent professional studio.
• Quality assurance. Review deliverables with students prior to client release, ensuring work meets the standard the studio's reputation depends on.
• Light administrative coordination. Track project status and flag capacity, scheduling, or scope issues to the Founding Director of Creative Enterprises.

The role is scoped at 3–7 hours weekly depending on studio volume.

Qualifications:

• Professional experience as a working graphic designer, with a portfolio demonstrating strong craft across identity, print, and/or digital work
• Ability to give clear, generous, and specific creative feedback to emerging designers
• Comfort with client-facing communication, including new business conversations
• Interest in mentorship and in the professional development of early-career creatives
• Familiarity with industry-standard tools and workflows (Adobe Creative Suite; Figma a plus)
• Reliability and self-direction — this role runs largely independently
• Prior teaching, critique, or studio leadership experience preferred but not required