Role summary
The Associate Creative Director (Design) is a client-facing creative leader responsible for owning creative direction and quality across an assigned book of business (pods). This role bridges strategy and execution by translating client context into high-quality briefs, directing Art Directors and designers, and ensuring work ships on-brand, on-strategy, and optimized for channel best practices.
This is not a “big idea only” role. You will be deeply involved in direction, critique, systems, and delivery quality.
Key responsibilities
Client leadership & pod ownership
- Own creative direction and final sign-off for an assigned portfolio of clients
- Serve as the primary creative partner to clients (alignment, expectations, presentations as needed)
- Partner with PM/Client Services to manage prioritization, timelines, and scope
Briefing & context translation (critical)
- Attend client meetings as needed (kickoffs, planning, reviews)
- Convert meetings and client inputs into clear briefs that include:
- objective, audience, offer, deliverables, channel specs, references, constraints, success metrics
- Identify ambiguity early and propose options/solutions to unblock execution
Creative direction & review
- Provide clear, prioritized, actionable feedback to designers and Art Directors
- Ensure consistency with brand standards and channel performance best practices
- Maintain quality across high-volume marketing output (web, email, ads, organic)
QA ownership & risk management
- Implement and maintain a tiered QA system:
- Designer self-QA AD review ACD final review
- Reduce revision cycles by improving upstream direction and clarity
- Escalate only high-risk work per agreed rubric (VIP accounts, new campaigns, strategic landing pages)
Team leadership & development
- Mentor Art Directors to strengthen direction, critique, and decision-making
- Coach designers on craft and execution standards
- Run weekly creative calibration sessions to ensure consistent output and alignment
Creative operations & standardization
- Build and maintain templates and standards for:
- briefs, feedback, file naming/versioning, handoffs, QA checklists
- Identify process improvements that reduce rework and increase throughput as the company scales
Success metrics (example KPIs)
- Reduced “directional miss” rate (major rework due to wrong concept/strategy/context)
- Improved first-pass approval rate (Designer AD ACD)
- Reduced average revision rounds per asset type
- Improved on-time delivery rate and reduced cycle time
- Fewer escalations to Head of Creative over time (without quality decline)
- Higher internal clarity scores on briefs and feedback
Qualifications
Required
- 7+ years professional design experience (agency or high-velocity marketing environment preferred)
- 2+ years in a lead role directing designers and/or Art Directors
- Strong portfolio across digital marketing:
- paid social/performance ads, email campaigns, web/landing pages, organic social
- Excellent briefing and critique skills (can articulate “why” and give actionable guidance)
- Strong client communication skills, including the ability to push back constructively
- Ability to lead remotely with dependable ET overlap
Preferred (nice-to-have)
- CRO/landing page optimization familiarity
- Experience with performance testing/iteration cycles
- Experience leading distributed teams
- Experience partnering closely with Paid Media teams
Tools (edit to match your stack)
- Figma (required)
- Adobe Creative Suite (helpful)
- Slack + Google Workspace
- Project management tool (Asana/ClickUp/Monday/etc.)
- Loom or async review tools
Application instructions
Please submit:
- Resume or LinkedIn
- Portfolio link (required)
- Location and time zone
- A brief note describing:
- the channels you’ve led most (ads/email/web/organic),
- an example of turning unclear client input into a clear brief.
This ACD role is a delivery-owning, client-facing pod lead position (briefing + direction + final QA), not a purely conceptual role.