Design Director, WSJ, Brand Marketing

Overview

Dow Jones & Co. is seeking a Design Director, WSJ Brand Marketing (Focus: Performance & Brand Design) to join the Brand Marketing team. This role drives design direction for performance marketing and leads design execution across mid- and lower-funnel campaigns for WSJ, WSJ+, Barron’s, and Market Watch, including paid platforms (Meta, Google
360, Reddit, Linked In, etc.) and owned channels. You will also conceptualize, design, and build email campaigns that support acquisition, engagement, and retention goals. In addition to performance marketing, this role contributes to broader brand design initiatives, including evolving visual identities and supporting the development of brand guidelines across Dow Jones brands. The Design Director collaborates with the Lead Visual Designer and partners with performance marketing strategy, channel specialists, project management, and our creative production partner agency to produce impactful, brand-forward design-driven campaigns that drive measurable results while ensuring adherence to brand standards.

The role reports to the Lead Visual Designer.

What You’ll Do

• Creative Strategy & Development for Performance Marketing:
  Participate in ideation sessions, creative reviews, and feedback cycles to develop and refine campaign concepts.
• Translate strategic direction, campaign goals, and audience insights into effective design solutions within established and evolving brand systems.
• Set and evolve visual frameworks and creative standards for performance marketing that balance emerging visual identities with brand consistency.
• Define creative testing strategy in partnership with performance marketing leads to support experimentation and optimization.
• Design and produce high-quality creative across platforms, including static, animation, and lightweight video assets.
• Deliver a high volume of variations efficiently, in collaboration with the Brand team and creative production agency partner, while maintaining quality, brand alignment, and a test-and-learn mindset.
• Present work clearly with rationale and iterate quickly based on feedback, data, and performance insights.

• Act as the primary brand guardian for performance marketing creative, ensuring all outputs meet brand standards and quality thresholds.
• Contribute to the evolution of visual identities across WSJ, WSJ+, and Dow Jones brands, including exploratory design, refinement, and implementation across touchpoints.
• Support the creation and evolution of brand guidelines, partnering with Brand Design leadership to document visual standards, usage rules, and best practices.
• Maintain deep understanding of brand guidelines and visual identity systems to ensure consistency and design excellence across all assets and channels.
• Drive cross-channel creative cohesion across performance marketing touchpoints to reinforce brand clarity and recognition.

• Execute designs that align with briefs, business objectives, and brand standards while supporting performance and scalability.
• Retouch images, edit video, and perform visual enhancements to ensure polished, high-quality output.
• Lead creative optimization strategy across platforms and channels using performance data, audience behavior, and platform insights.
• Apply accessibility standards and platform best practices across all creative outputs.

• Partner closely with the Brand team, project managers, and creative production agency partner to understand objectives, plan workload, meet timelines, and deliver cohesive creative.
• Provide directional feedback and creative guidance to agency partners and internal designers, grounded in brand standards, systems, and campaign objectives.
• Serve as a subject-matter expert and internal advisor for performance marketing design within Brand Marketing.
• Support and mentor other designers on the team through informal guidance, feedback, and shared best practices (without direct people management).
• Ensure design solutions support marketing and revenue objectives while reinforcing brand standards.

• Stay current on industry best practices, platform updates, competitor creative and campaigns, and emerging approaches in performance marketing and brand design.
• Track social media, lifestyle, cultural, and platform-native trends to create relevant, engaging creative.
• Be a continuous learner, applying insights from design, creative, and category-adjacent trends to inspire new approaches.
• Champion high craft standards and a design-forward culture within Brand Marketing.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in visual design, marketing design, or performance creative.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating visual design excellence and experience building or evolving digital brand identities.
• Expertise in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign).
• Experience producing both static and…