Associate Art Director: Shape Game Visual Identity

Scopely; Culver City (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Scopely is seeking an Associate Art Director to shape the game's visual identity and guide art from early development through delivery. You will work with creative leadership to translate vision into briefs, references, and actionable feedback, while contributing hands-on in at least one art discipline.

You will mentor artists, align teams on visual priorities, and ensure cohesive, high-quality assets across characters, environments, UI, and lighting for mobile games.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience creating art for games, animation, film, or a related visual medium, or equivalent experience.
• Experience helping define, communicate, and execute an artistic vision from early development through delivery.
• Strong hands-on experience in at least one art discipline, with particular relevance to character art, environment art, or both.
• Ability to communicate visual direction, facilitate constructive reviews, and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, external partners, and distributed contributors.
• Working knowledge of production planning, prioritization, and milestone constraints, with the judgment to balance creative priorities and delivery needs.
• Experience creating or contributing to art bibles, style guides, visual development packages, mood boards, paintovers, callout sheets, or similar direction-setting materials.
• Understanding of game art and real-time production pipelines, plus familiarity with relevant 2D and/or 3D content creation tools.
• A portfolio that demonstrates artistic judgment, visual problem-solving, hands-on craft, and the ability to guide work from concept to completion.
• Experience in mobile game development or art direction.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the Senior Art Director and creative leadership to define the game's visual identity, principles, style guides, briefs, references, and quality standards.
• Align art disciplines and partner teams around shared goals, dependencies, handoffs, and decisions. Lead visual reviews, critiques, kickoffs, and alignment sessions with clear, constructive feedback.
• Guide the creation and refinement of characters, environments, props, lighting, animation, VFX, UI, and other visual components, maintaining cohesion and variety.
• Work with design, narrative, engineering, production, and external development partners to carry the artistic intent through development.
• Contribute hands-on through concept development, paintovers, blockouts, callout sheets, reference packages, prototypes, or other art tasks.
• Partner with production and discipline leads to understand milestones, surface risks, and keep creative priorities moving toward delivery.
• Support artists, external partners, and vendors with clear direction, feedback, and mentorship.
• Improve visual review and direction processes, represent the art team in cross-functional discussions, and communicate priorities to artists, partners, and senior stakeholders.

Skills

Art direction

Portfolio

Cross-functional collaboration

Visual development

Art bible creation

Style guides

Mobile game experience

Unity familiarity

Job description

Scopely is seeking an Associate Art Director to shape the game's visual identity and guide art from early development through delivery. You will work with creative leadership to translate vision into briefs, references, and actionable feedback, while contributing hands-on in at least one art discipline.

You will mentor artists, align teams on visual priorities, and ensure cohesive, high-quality assets across characters, environments, UI, and lighting for mobile games.