Associate Creative Director, Design

Kettle; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Kettle is seeking an Associate Creative Director, Design, to elevate design, art direction, branding, and creative concepts across a diverse client roster. You will help shape visual direction and bring it to life across digital, social, web, experiential, and campaigns, while collaborating with Copy, Strategy, Production, and Executive stakeholders.

This role blends leadership and hands-on work, mentoring designers, championing craft, and driving innovative thinking.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in design with 3+ years in a managerial role.
• Proven ability to lead campaign development from concept through execution across integrated platforms.
• Expertise in design and art direction fundamentals, and how to design for motion.
• Ability to manage feedback from multiple stakeholders.
• Experience mentoring designers and partnering with Creative Directors of Copy, Art, and Social.
• Communicate clear deadlines and expectations to a team of creatives.
• Innovative mindset with a hunger for finding new ways to serve our clients and their needs.
• Exceptional ability to adapt brand look and feel across industries and audiences, from B2B to B2C.
• Active use of AI in your workflow, and experience mentoring teams to adopt it.
• Strong presentation and communication skills, with executive presence and the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Lead and execute work across digital, social, web, experiential, and campaign concepts.
• Mentor and grow the creative team.
• Collaborate closely with Copy, Strategy, Production, and Executive stakeholders.
• Deliver relevant, effective, and innovative creative while elevating craft across accounts.
• Champion the craft of design and push conceptual thinking forward.

Skills

Design leadership

Brand-focused creativity

Campaign development

Art direction

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

AI workflow adoption

Executive presence

Deadline management

Job description

Kettle is a team of passionate, fearless creatives focused on delivering great products, redefining best-practices, and providing new opportunities for our clients. We are seeking an Associate Creative Director, Design, to help lead and elevate design, art direction, branding, and creative concepts across a diverse range of clients. This role is pivotal in shaping our clients' visual direction and bringing it to life across digital, social, web, experiential, and campaign. As a leader/doer, you'll collaborate closely with Copy, Strategy, Production, and Executive stakeholders to deliver relevant, effective, and innovative creative, with a heavy emphasis on elevating the craft of our teams and accounts. Project and account depending, you'll both lead and also execute work at least some of the time. You will be expected to champion the craft of design, mentor and grow the creative team, and push conceptual thinking forward to drive innovation and excellence across all touchpoints. If you thrive at the intersection of strategic thinking, creative ideation, and impactful visual storytelling, if you feel that design and copy shouldn't be built in silos but rather in harmony, this opportunity might be for you.

Candidates should have:

• At least 8+ years of experience in design, either at an agency, in-house, or both, and 3+ years in a managerial role, with a strong track record of craft-oriented, brand-focused creative work
• Proven ability to lead campaign development from concept through execution across integrated platforms, and a natural ability to provide clear, actionable direction, ensuring consistency across assets
• Expertise in design and art direction fundamentals, and how to design for motion.
• The ability to manage feedback from multiple stakeholders simultaneously
• Experience mentoring designers and partnering with Creative Directors of Copy, Art, and Social, and leading cross-functional creative teams in a fast-paced, collaborative environment
• The ability to communicate clear deadlines and expectations to a team of creatives and sometimes creators (in the social space)
• An innovative mindset, with a hunger for finding new ways to serve our clients and their needs
• Exceptional ability to adapt brand look and feel across industries and audiences, from B2B to B2C, and connect creative ideas to broader business objectives
• Active use of AI in your workflow, and experience mentoring teams to adopt it and to learn how to change the way they work in whatever ways make sense for the future of the team
• Strong presentation and communication skills, with executive presence and the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels

We'd like to know that you demonstrate leadership and excellence in:

• Digital: Crafting and executing look and feel to bring a brand's guidelines to life in the digital space, with executions flowing out of that across landing pages, emails, OOH, experiential, social, campaign concepts, videos, and more
• Campaign Concepting: Generation of and leadership over big ideas, collaborating across disciplines to build campaign ecosystems that are strategically sound and creatively bold
• Pitch Decks: Build persuasive presentations that structure and elevate strategic and creative storytelling for key internal and external audiences

The target range of base compensation for this role is $140k - 170k. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and location.