Creative Director

The Creative Director is a creative leadership role responsible for how Pfeffer Torode’s work is seen, understood, and remembered. The Principals hold the firm’s creative vision; the Creative Director provides the leadership, execution, and stewardship that carry that vision into the world — through brand, imagery, storytelling, publication, and the standards by which PTA presents itself.

This role is both executor and creative partner. The Principals sets the larger direction; the Creative Director develops ideas against it, challenges and refines them, and sees them through to a finished, considered result. The expectation is not only to direct the work but to make it — this is a hands‑on role with genuine craft in layout, image, and language.

Roughly two-thirds of the role is firm‑level: brand, photography, publications, awards, website and social direction, and the presentation standards that govern how every PTA document looks. The remainder is project‑level. On a small number of high‑profile projects, the Creative Director embeds with the design team, shaping the project’s thesis so that the story of the work is built while the work is being built, rather than assembled after the fact.

Project‑embedded work represents approximately 25–35% of the role and is billable to projects.

Reports to:

Ginny Au, Principal, with a direct working relationship with the Managing Director and Principals.

Direct report:
Creative Lead.

Works closely with Operations, Business Development, and third party marketing.

Location:

Birmingham Studio with regular travel to our Nashville Studio.

Brand and Creative Direction

• Hold and extend PTA’s visual and verbal identity so that every touchpoint — brand, website, social, publications, presentations, collateral, events — reads as one firm with one point of view
• Translate the creative direction into concepts, narratives, and finished pieces, bringing ideas forward rather than waiting for assignment
• Challenge and refine direction where doing so strengthens the result, and defend the reasoning behind creative decisions
• Establish and maintain firmwide presentation standards — templates, typography, image treatment, document craft — so that any document leaving PTA meets the same bar
• Personally produce high‑craft layouts, presentations, and visual storytelling in Figma, InDesign and Photoshop
• Review and approve external presentations, messaging, imagery, and collateral before they leave the firm

Image and Storytelling

• Oversee the photography program end to end: contribute to which projects are photographed and when, work with the Creative Lead on shot lists, art direction on site, and make final selects with the Principal
• Refine the designer thesis of each project — the argument the work is making — and carry it consistently into decks, publications, web, and social
• Cultivate editorial relationships and pitch projects for publication; manage print publication processes end to end
• Own the awards and competitions calendar: select what to enter, write the narratives, package the imagery, and manage submissions through to result

Channels and Audience

• Set social strategy and provide art direction across channels; the Creative Lead and marketing support carry communications, coordination, scheduling, and posting
• Direct website content, imagery, and structure, keeping the site current with work
• Review web and social analytic reports, using what they show to adjust strategy rather than merely to report it
• Support business development with pitch materials, RFP’s, and capability collateral that make PTA’s argument clearly and beautifully
• Shape PTA’s presence at events and within the industry — among peers, vendors, editors, and press
• Steward employer brand: how PTA presents itself to the people it hopes to hire

Project‑Embedded Creative Direction

• Serve as embedded creative director on a small number of high‑profile projects, under the design direction of the Principals
• Participate from concept, contributing to concept development, project narrative, and the visual argument of the work
• Direct project presentation materials so that client‑facing work reflects PTA’s standard of craft
• Plan the…