Associate Design Director

Hook LLC.; United States; Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental

401k matching

Paid vacation

Holidays

Wellness stipends

Continuing education subsidies

Job summary

Hook LLC is seeking a hands-on Associate Design Director to lead design efforts for national and global brands. You’ll bridge high-level strategy with scalable visual execution, driving premium work across digital, video, print, and emerging formats.

You will lead, mentor, and collaborate with cross-functional teams, building robust design systems and frameworks while maintaining creative fidelity and timely delivery.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership in design projects and teams.
• Expertise in design systems and visual languages.
• Strong communication with clients and internal teams.

Responsibilities

• Demonstrate mastery of visual design across disciplines.
• Build and maintain design systems and component libraries.
• Mentor cross-functional teams to accelerate skill progression.
• Lead projects to ensure client-ready outcomes at all phases.
• Collaborate with creative staff to exceed client expectations.

Skills

leadership

design systems

visual design

communication

mentorship

team leadership

Tools

Adobe Creative Cloud

Figma

Illustrator

Photoshop

After Effects

Cinema 4D

Job description

Hook is a Creative Production Agency. With a collaborative, maker-centric team, and an emphasis on production-led design, we develop creative campaigns, short-form content, and websites for well-known brands.

Our mission is to integrate creative and production to help grow brands faster. But we believe what’s most important are the people who work with us and the experience they have along the way. We want clients to think of us as the best agency they’ve ever worked with, and we want everyone at Hook to feel like this is the best job they’ve had yet.

WHAT’S AN ASSOCIATE DESIGN DIRECTOR AT HOOK?

Hook is seeking a hands‑on Associate Design Director to join one of our teams.

Associate Design Directors are experienced leaders who use design to exceed client goals, while working within the guard rails of existing brand marketing strategies. They operate alongside creative and motion teams, serving as a client‑facing bridge between high‑level brand strategy and systematic visual execution. They create robust visual languages and scalable design frameworks that power industry‑leading content across static and animated mediums.

They are driven experts with a passion for making premium, ground‑breaking work and a commitment to fostering the talents of the employees they collaborate with. They are fearless executors who elevate the work into new creative territories. They’re fundamentalists when it comes to digital design, but approach projects with rational and innovative mindsets, always mindful of how it looks and how it works.

Associate Design Directors are ready for hands‑on projects at every stage of the life cycle, from brainstorming creative concepts with the project team and developing original campaigns, to participating in client presentations and ensuring deadlines are met, to building dynamic design systems and overseeing high‑volume production rollouts that scale seamlessly across digital, video, print, and emerging platforms.

They have a well‑established process for concept development, using visual presentations, storyboards, and mocks to communicate solutions to peers, leadership, and clients. They also excel at translating bold concepts into modular, extensible design systems. With expertise in design tokenization, asset automation, and end‑to‑end production pipelines, they ensure pixel‑perfect, efficient client delivery at scale, always on time and on spec.

While this role would oversee tactical production workstreams, their responsibilities will also focus on strategic and conceptual visual design challenges for national and global brands/campaigns. With an existing design team in place, and opportunities to recruit additional talent, previous experience with team and project leadership within a rapid production environment will be a critical skill. Given the close proximity to marketing clients, being an excellent communicator and an overall joy‑to‑work‑with will also go a long way toward success.

While this role can work from any approved location, this person must have the flexibility to work around PST hours as the team’s clients are based on the West Coast.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Demonstrate a mastery of visual design across design disciplines
• Execute, manage, and govern original, conceptual, and system‑driven visual design work in line with agency standards and complex brand design systems
• Build and maintain comprehensive visual design systems, component libraries, and modular toolkits that empower teams to produce high‑volume assets efficiently without losing creative fidelity
• Apply design rigor to provide mentorship to cross‑functional teams with the goal of accelerating skill progression
• Inspire, oversee, and provide mentorship to design staff with the goal of accelerating skill progression through a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and knowledge sharing
• Fluently speak the language of design with both clients and creatives enabling effective feedback and direction
• Demonstrate emotional intelligence in all meetings and communications
• Work closely with creative staff to ensure design work goes above and beyond the expected
• Maintain and promote internal best practices around modern production design, tool integrations, automated workflows, and standardized asset handoffs
• Model a sense of ownership that elevates the standards and quality of all work achieved by the designers
• Demonstrate an ability to work on multiple projects at the same time while maintaining clear vision of priorities
• Lead projects and oversee a team to ensure that work is client‑ready at all phases of their projects
• Manage direct reports to help shape and grow their careers as it relates to their hard and soft skill development

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Demonstrate a high level of craftsmanship in design, with expertise working on design solutions as it relates to campaigns and visual systems across multiple platforms
• Expertise in visual design with a deep focus on design systems, component architecture, and multi‑channel campaign scaling
• Proven experience leading design streams, multi‑format adaptation pipelines, and modular creative rollouts for complex, multi‑market campaigns
• Have outstanding communication and presentation skills
• Be imaginative, collaborative, conceptual, and curious
• Have an optimistic outlook toward client revisions, knowing when and how to offer opportunities to push boundaries creatively
• Generate and maintain enthusiasm for ideas within the agency as they move from concept to execution
• Mastery of Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator) alongside a strong technical understanding of digital production formats, asset optimization, and platform specs
• Mastery of Figma (variables, auto‑layout, component libraries, dynamic templates) to build scalable design infrastructure and drive workflow efficiencies
• Additional programs and skills are great to come with (illustration, motion/After Effects, 3D/Cinema 4D)
• Have direct experience—and an enthusiasm for—team leadership and mentorship

WHAT ELSE

Qualified applicants will include a resume and a link to a portfolio/body of work that demonstrates a breadth of experience.

This is a full‑time position that can be hybrid or remote, depending on geographic location. We're a close‑knitted group of people who love what we do and want to create phenomenal work.

Company benefits include health, dental, matching 401k, paid vacation and holidays, wellness stipends/continuing education subsidies and more.

At Hook we value what makes everyone different, we look for the best talent no matter the background. We know that great work requires diverse perspectives which is why we strive to create a place of belonging where everyone can express who they are.

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

We look forward to hearing from you!