As a freelance Associate Creative Director, you couple a strong creative voice with strategic thinking to lead major marketing initiatives. Balancing creative thinking with interpersonal skills, you develop solid client relations by clearly communicating and justifying concepts. Visual design is your bread and butter—but you’ve also got strong working knowledge of experience design, brand development, interactive commerce, and creative processes, which are essential in your role.You’re looking to hone your management skills directing the collaborative efforts of a large creative team.

And the environment you build for your team fosters professional growth and inspires others to exceed expectations. Most importantly, you embody and embrace our values—to be honest, inspired, drive, passionate and real—in everything you do.

You will:

• Drive the strategies that address customer needs and business goals across digital channels.
• Contribute creative solutions and innovations that strengthen both the agency brand and market leadership position.
• Develop & deliver innovative proposals to capture both account growth and new business opportunities.
• Promote continuous improvement and accountability by driving Creative discipline and operational excellence and lending industry vertical expertise.
• Perform strategic account planning with senior management in vertical marketing groups.
• Conceive and create experience design solutions that fulfill strategic business objectives.
• Effectively communicate creative ideas and strategies to all project stakeholders.
• Lead and partner with multidisciplinary teams, including all creative disciplines, technology, planning, account and program managers, partners, clients and more.
• Provide regular team leadership and constructive feedback on all accounts.
• Develop, monitor, and modify the business unit creative department staffing strategies and plans, including team composition, performance, skills, training, and mentoring.
• Develop, implement, and monitor quality standards across all creative artifacts and deliverables.
• Continuously improve Creative methods, problem solving models, and best practices.
• Proactively manage the success of production scope, schedules, and budgets.
• Engage and inform practice leads from media, technology, marketing science, usability, and quality assurance to maximize results and ensure satisfaction.
• Support and lead Human Resource initiatives with a focus on performance management.
• Understand, embrace, and communicate corporate mission and values.

You have:

• 4+ years design, marketing, or communications interactive work and art direction experience.
• Strong design portfolio.
• Passion for design and eagerness to collaborate with other creative people.
• Solid understanding and appreciation for the distinction between creative expression and commercial reality.

The Talent Team at Critical Mass is focused on ensuring we provide the best training, mentorship, and employee experience possible!  CM new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success.  In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 4 days a week.  The ask stems from our want to:

• Strengthen opportunity for continuous learning
• Improve collaboration and team relationships.
• Increase employee engagement

We understand that not everyone may feel comfortable with this expectation, so we ask that you please let us know immediately if there are any concerns so we can help navigate accordingly.

We continually review ranges to address skills, experience and markets. Base salaries are determined during our interview process, by assessing a number of factors that include, but aren’t limited to, a candidate’s experience and skills relative to the scope and responsibilities of the position. For current CM employees, tenure will also be a consideration.Salary Range$100—$125 USD

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. If you are an individual with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please reach out to accommodations@criticalmass.com.

We are committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within our pool of candidates, with a target of achieving at least 50% representation from underrepresented communities.

The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com and us.greenhouse-mail.io. We will not use apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts for communicating with you. We will never ask you to send us money, technology, or anything else to work for our company. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please review your local government consumer protections guidance and reach out to them directly.

If U.S. based: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams#avoidIf Canada based: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/finance/consumer-affairs.htmlIf U.K. based: https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rightsIf Costa Rica based: https://www.consumo.go.cr/educacion_consumidor/consejos_practicos.aspx