Senior Art Director

Leo Burnett; Singapore; On-site; SGD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Leo Burnett Singapore seeks a senior art director with deep FMCG knowledge and a fashion/editorial eye to elevate beauty brands across touchpoints in APAC. You will bridge FMCG rigor with editorial restraint and guide visuals from social to retail.

Expect a role shaping global beauty narratives, leading concept development, and collaborating with Creative Director teams to deliver culturally resonant work. Willingness to travel for shoots and post sessions is required.

Qualifications

• 6–10 years of senior art direction experience in FMCG/beauty
• Portfolio proving beauty, fashion, editorial crossover
• Experience with cross-channel campaigns and multi-brand work
• Strong understanding of global beauty trends and cultural shifts

Responsibilities

• Lead concept development and execution across social, film, digital, retail and packaging
• Direct photography and visual talent with editorial precision
• Collaborate with Creative Director teams and cross-functional partners
• Bridge FMCG rigor with fashion/editorial aesthetics to create culturally resonant work

Skills

Art direction

Figma

Adobe CC

Blender

AI tools

Brand storytelling

Social media strategy

Typography

Cultural trend awareness

Tools

Figma

Adobe CC

Blender

Job description

This is not a typical senior art director role. We are looking for someone with an uncommon perspective: deep FMCG knowledge paired with an eye shaped by fashion, pop culture, and an understanding of how global beauty trends emerge and spread. You will be responsible for elevating how major brands, particularly in the beauty space, show up across every touchpoint. This means knowing where beauty is headed, not just where it is. It means bridging FMCG rigour with the cultural weight of editorial work, the restraint of high fashion, and the speed of culture. Your work will travel across Asia to Australia, directly shape the visual language of brands genuinely trying to evolve, and partner closely with our Creative Director team on briefs spanning social, communications, film, digital, retail, and beyond.

Expectations

Craft & Visual Excellence: Beauty Elevation Beyond Category Codes

• Elevate beauty beyond typical FMCG visualization. Bring the aesthetic sensibility, pace, and attitude of fashion, editorial, and pop culture into beauty work. Your visual language should feel modern, young, hip, and fresh, not constrained by category codes.
• Make design choices that are not just strategic. They’re culturally bold enough to stand out. The work should feel distinct from category defaults, challenge it and iterate.
• Build distinctive visual languages that break category conventions, using colour, typography, composition, and art direction in ways that feel contemporary and undefined by beauty norms. Work should feel at-home in i-D or Hypebeast as much as in commercial channels.
• Own the editing and typographic approach with a fresh perspective—leverage AI tools, push unconventional typography, develop novel colour treatment and retouching methodologies. The goal is visual language that feels ahead of category, not bound by it.
• Direct photography and visual talent with the eye of an editorial director. Brief with precision about mood, light, composition, and cultural energy. The aesthetic should feel shot with intention, not produced with category defaults.

Concept & Strategy

• Ideate, craft, and execute original creative concepts in response to client briefs, objectives, and cultural moments
• Develop ideas that meet client and business objectives while maintaining creative excellence
• Lead and participate in brainstorming sessions, bringing market insight and cultural perspective

Collaboration & Delivery

• Own projects from concept through completion, coordinating with in-house and third-party resources (photographers, retouchers, production partners)
• Present creative work with clarity and conviction, defending your choices and the cultural logic behind them
• Collaborate across creative, account management, and planning teams to develop disruptive, culturally relevant work

What We Are Looking For

6–10 years of experience with a portfolio proving you can execute at scale—FMCG, beauty, skincare, haircare, personal care, fashion, or similar categories. Your work has moved the needle commercially and creatively. Your book is brave, not just correct.

But here is the difference: you have also worked in or deeply studied adjacent creative worlds where culture and design intersect—magazine editorial, fashion brands, pop culture-first platforms. You understand how a luxury skincare brand thinks about storytelling, how fashion collaborations work, and that cultural relevance is structural, not decorative.

Beauty Market Fluency & Global Trendsetters

You understand how trends originate and spread. You know how C-beauty and K-beauty shape the global conversation as trendsetters—markets like Shanghai and Seoul often define what other regions adopt in 18–24 months. You translate this understanding for our brands across APAC.

You have real experience or genuine familiarity with Southeast Asian, China, Indian, or Australian markets. You understand why a visual that works in one city does not land in another, and how to brief concepts that actually work across cultural contexts.

Social-First Thinking & Omnichannel Craft

Social-first is where your thinking starts. You can hold an idea and see it across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, out-of-home, retail, and packaging simultaneously. You know which surface tells the story best and execute each with equal craft rigour.

Core Competencies

• A keen student of life—open, curious, always willing to learn
• Mastery of design software (Figma, Adobe CC, Blender, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with AI tools as creative augmentation, you view AI as a tool to push aesthetic boundaries, not replace craft
• Strong grasp of social media platforms and content performance
• Ability to work under pressure, manage multiple projects, and coordinate with vendors (photographers, retouchers, production partners)
• Naturally well-organised and unfazed by tight deadlines
• Willingness to travel to shoots and post sessions
• Ability to collaborate effectively across disciplines and seniority levels

Who You Will Work With

A creative team driving briefs across major brands in beauty and FMCG. Strategy partners focused on market insight and cultural truth. Leadership invested in holding craft and commerce in equal tension.

We’re looking for work that goes beyond what is adequate for FMCG. We want our brands to matter culturally, feel alive, and compete aesthetically with the most sophisticated creative work happening globally. We’re looking for someone who understands where trends originate and how to get ahead and someone who holds beauty craft and executional excellence to the highest standard.