Design Director

Critical Mass; Calgary; On-site; CAD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A creative agency in Calgary is seeking a Design Director, Art to lead the design of digital systems while managing a creative team. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in design leadership and performance marketing. Responsibilities include fostering a creative culture, strategic account planning, and delivering innovative design solutions. The role demands hands-on involvement and a collaborative approach. Competitive salary and supportive workplace culture offered.

Benefits

Professional growth opportunities

Collaboration with diverse teams

Qualifications

• 4+ years visual communication education or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years design, marketing, or communications experience.
• Experience in a lead design role within an agency.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of a digital design system.
• Build a creative culture within the design team.
• Drive strategies that address customer needs.

Skills

Visual communication

Design leadership

Team management

Creative thinking

Education

Design or related field education

Tools

Figma

Job description

As aDesign Director, Artyou couple a strong creative voice with strategy and product thinking to lead performance marketing and design framework initiatives. Balancing creative thinking, political acumen, and organizational/process savvy, you develop solid client relations by clearly communicating and justifying concepts. Visual and systematic design woven together with a performance lens is your bread and butter—but you’ve also got strong working knowledge of experience design, brand development, interactive commerce, creative and product processes, UX and UI principles, and scalable design system development—all 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, driven, passionate and real—in everything you do.

You Will

• Lead the design of a digital design system, both building from established patterns and iterating on new design components to evolve the system
• Be a hands‑on creative lead with the desire and capability to bring the best out of a design team.
• Build and maintain creative culture within the design team
• Understand skillsets and personalities of team members to find areas for opportunity or improvement
• 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.
• Be just as comfortable in the work as leading it. Figma is an extension of your creativity.
• 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 visual communication education or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years design, marketing, or communications interactive work and design leadership experience.
• Experience in a lead design role within a project‑based strategic, creative, or technical agency environment
• Substantial experience managing and bringing to life performance social creative
• A solid understanding of storytelling with the use of video – editing, pacing, motion design excellence.
• Passion for design and eagerness to collaborate with other creative people.
• Solid understanding and appreciation for the distinction between creative expression and commercial reality.

Our 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 this team to work from an office 5 days a week.

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer.

The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com, omc.comandus.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.

Voluntary Self‑Identification

At Critical Mass, we are dedicated and determined to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities in which we live and work. It is crucial that every team member can thrive and reach their full potential.

With that said, we’d like to know a little more about you. We ask all applicants to fill out the below voluntary self‑identification questions in order to evaluate and improve our recruitment and diversity efforts. Answering is completelyvoluntary and will not affect the outcome of your application.

The data collected may be reviewed by the Critical Mass Talent Acquisition Team, Human Resources, our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion team, and our executives, but they will neither be reviewed by nor disclosed to anyone else. All the information that you share with us pursuant to this survey will be stored on our secure network servers located within Canada and the United States. We will only retain this information so long as it is necessary for the purpose that we have described here or as may be required by applicable laws. Thereafter, we will either anonymize the information or delete it entirely. If you elect to complete this survey, and at any point in the future you wish to retract or amend your responses, or otherwise have any questions about your data, you may contact our Talent Acquisition team at [e-mail].

As set forth in Critical Mass’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

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Aboriginal Peoples means persons who are defined as: Indians (more commonly referred to as First Nations), Inuit, or Métis.

Members of Visible Minorities Definition

Members of Visible Minorities means persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non‑Caucasian in race or non‑white in color.
Examples:
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Arab (e.g. Middle Eastern, North African, etc.)
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West Asian (e.g. Armenian, Iranian, Persian, Egyptian, Turkish, etc.)
Other (e.g. Latin American, Pacific Islander, etc.)

Persons with Disabilities Definition

Persons with Disabilities means persons who have a physical or mental impairment or medical condition that substantially limits a major life activity, or if you have a history or record of such an impairment or medical condition.