Art Director at Rocket XL
Los Angeles, CA Posted 1/23/12

Background:
Over the past 8 years we’ve grown from a small pioneering social media agency focused on entertainment clients, to a global social media agency with broad digital capabilities across diverse industries and categories. Our award-winning work spans the fields of QSR, Food/Beverage, CPG, Entertainment, Sports, Retail, and Non-Profit. We’re fortunate to have deep experience with some of the biggest, most forward thinking brands in the world: Unilever, Electronic Arts, IKEA, Cadbury/Kraft, InBev, Samsung, and the National Hockey League.

Responsibilities:
The Art Director is responsible for collaborating on overall campaign ideas alongside the Creative Director and Associate Creative Director/Copywriter teams for social interactive executions.

Other than the CD/ACD, the Art Director will be the most senior ‘hands-on’ creative and will ensure that each design project supports the ‘bigger picture’ of each campaign. As such, the AD will work closely and mentor junior and intermediate creative staff on developing and maintaining creative vision, supporting business requirements and honoring best practices for online social creative/production.

The role of Art Director requires presenting work to executive level client stakeholders while being a champion for productions’ creative integrity from end to end throughout the engagement.

The role also requires participation in client pitches, attendance at social media industry events and building a network of potential future hires/freelance resources.

Requirements:
- Position requires 5 to 7 years of web and graphic design experience with strong branding, conceptual, visual communication and presentation skills. Requires solid management experience within a design environment.
- Must consistently demonstrate strong strategic and creative thinking and proactively develops and suggests strong ideas at team and client meetings in ways that help add value, solve problems, generate new opportunities for clients, assess and articulate opportunities and risks and at all time work to further the communications goals of clients.
- Is a leader in developing new ideas for the company and bringing the creative ideas of others to market. As a conceptual thinker, you can apply ideas across various social media including Facebook, Twitter, video channels and geo location services, such Foursquare.
- Is meticulous and quality-oriented. Pays attention to details and does not let things fall through the cracks.
- Effectively uses all available resources to research information related to client needs and new business opportunities (frontline analysis reports, taps into community manager insights, etc.), applies his/her own judgment, interprets what is needed, asks questions, makes the best use of technology, and assembles helpful and relevant information quickly.
- Intermediate-to-senior digital technical knowledge is expected for this position and a strong understanding of the creative process from ideation through production.
- Strong conceptual thinking for both traditional interactive and social media
- A solid understanding of designing intuitive site functionality, interaction, user interfaces, and navigation
- Strong working knowledge of HTML, proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver). Action script expertise a plus.
- Mentor-minded when working with junior department members. Ability to provide constructive direction to improve overall quality. Strong leadership skills-ability to lead a team, manage and mentor junior designers
- Assist in estimating/scoping projects alongside the project manager where required
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in presenting concepts and final work to internal client-based teams as well as in-person client meetings. Excellent people skills for engaging both clients and colleagues
- Strong presentation skills and with the ability to expertly articulate the strategy behind the work
- Exhibits poise and professionalism and articulates ideas effectively, persuasively and passionately. Is effective in a variety of presentation settings, one-on-one, groups, etc.
- Has a strong ability to defend and sell ideas to clients and is savvy at fielding questions.
- Listens well, grasps underlying issues being raised, and provides intelligent, convincing responses.
- Effectively develops high quality and spectacular recommendations, programs, or creative work for clients, i.e., comes up with creative and strategically sound ideas that address client needs and further client communication goals.
- Possesses and applies an in-depth understanding of tools and strategies and has a comprehensive grasp of all the processes and systems. Applies discipline-related knowledge to help the agency/business unit improve its operations, while enhancing client and staff satisfaction.
- Can read his/her own emotions, accurately assess his/her personality, keep disruptive emotions under control, and be trustworthy, flexible, and optimistic. Picks up on the need to change personal or interpersonal behaviors when necessary.
- Can empathize with others’ concerns to inspire, to persuade, and to resolve disagreements.
- Is personally committed to and actively works to continuously improve himself/herself.
- Participates in relevant training or developmental activities. Analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement.

To Apply to this Position:
Apply via email: nick.raymond@rocketxl.com
Please email resumes and salary history