Art Director

GPJ is hiring an Art Director to join our growing team.

This role is hybrid, requiring you to report on-site to our Boston office location a minimum of 2 days per week.

Your Role

The role of the Art Director is to lead in strategically founded creative ideation and distill it into a unique and innovative experience design approach that is clearly communicated to internal and external teams.

As an Art Director, I excel in story-telling through words and visuals as I work to shape the attendee experience, contributing to every touch point. In my role, I work closely with our Creative Director and other team members to come up with unique ideas and experiences that meet client objectives and solve challenges. I am a leader within the creative team and often coach and mentor other creatives.

Travel will also be part of the job, with an estimated 3-5 trips per year, both domestically and internationally, often to attend shows and events.

In this role, I will:

• Be an agency leader in translating the clients brand into a thoughtful, compelling and interactive experience.
• Lead the creative team in new thinking and techniques and set the highest standard for all designers to follow.
• Collaborate with creative leadership to create high-quality, strategic presentations that exceed client expectations through copywriting, sketches, renders, mock-ups, and presentations
• Produce and inspire inventive, thoughtful, on-brand work.
• Produce print ready graphic files
• Excel at managing workload and meeting tight deadlines
• Participate in planning and strategy sessions
• Comfortable leading the graphic design team on assigned projects, overseeing designers’ work and ensuring execution is consistent and of the highest quality
• Work closely with Creative Directors to execute on strategic design solutions
• Approach design with thoughtfulness and understanding of how it impacts the larger business, bringing to life multiple concepts and solutions to meet client objectives
• Present creative ideas to clients, developing client relationships
• Collaborate with graphics production and creative tech to solve design and budgetary challenges while maintaining design and brand integrity

Your Skills

• Mastery of Adobe Creative Suite and Google Suite
• Passion for learning new software and tracking emerging trends such as AI-based software (Firefly, Gemini, etc.)
• Ensure deadlines are being adhered to for each state in the process
• Communicate all changes to other team members in a timely and articulate manner
• Lead the development of new ideas and creative design solutions across multiple brands and initiatives
• Demonstrate excellent taste, astute design skills and an incredible eye for detail
• Conceptualize unique experiences that exceed client expectations
• Mentor creative account team members so well that they can one day take your job; identify areas of growth and help them establish their career paths.
• Oversee account-based creative teams, while partnering closely with creative leadership and fostering positive relationships with account and production teams
• Supervises design team on projects, assists CPM in overall management of projects
• Understand the creative team’s bandwidth and recommends when we need additional resources
• Provide clear art direction at initiation, and follows through by coaching creative team members (as well as account teams), while monitoring and guiding their efforts, and investing in successful results
• Knows how to adjust direction and feedback based on the project and designer needs
• Inspire clients and creative partners with mind-blowing concepts, approaches, and presentations
• Inspire creativity, innovative thinking, and focused effort in the development of strong concepts and solutions
• Create sketches, mood boards, layouts, 2D and 3D renders, deck design/ templates, presentation/content structure and POS materials
• Inspire creativity, innovative thinking, and focused effort in the development of strong concepts and solutions
• Create a thoughtful and engaging guest journey for all projects
• Adjust work when necessary to maintain the strategic integrity within any client restrictions
• Deliver ideas and themes based on sound strategic rationales and a deep understanding of branding
• Adeptly contribute to and oversees the concept, design and development of pitch presentations and concepts for new business and existing clients
• Advocate for brand and identity standards, and extracts their equity to maximum effect – understands when to adhere closely to them and when to advise more…