Creative Director

Colonial Group; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% health benefit premiums for you/5

401K match and RSUs

Flexible vacation policy

Weekly office catered lunches

Employee-driven entertainment and team

Snacks and drinks in the kitchen

Casual work environment

Job summary

PLAYSTUDIOS is seeking an experienced Creative Director to shape the studio's artistic vision and to drive the adoption of AI-assisted content creation across the art organization.

You will champion experimentation, develop repeatable AI workflows, and mentor artists in prompt development and AI best practices while collaborating with Product, Engineering, and Production to elevate quality and player experience.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, Design, Animation, or equivalent professional experience.
• 5+ years of experience as an Art Director or senior creative leader within the games industry.
• Strong understanding of production pipelines, asset optimization, and game development workflows.
• Demonstrated experience using modern generative AI tools in professional creative workflows.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead concept development and production art across our social casino portfolio, live operations, and promotional content.
• Define and maintain the visual quality bar across products while ensuring artistic consistency.
• Partner with Product Managers, Producers, Design, Engineering, and Technical Art throughout the development lifecycle.
• Develop style guides, creative direction, and visual standards for new games and features.
• Mentor artists through creative feedback, coaching, and career development.
• Lead the studio's transition toward AI-assisted art production, establishing scalable workflows.

Skills

Art direction

Leadership

Communication

AI workflows

Education

Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, Design, Animation, or equivalent professional experience

Tools

Unity pipelines

Maya

Blender

ZBrush

Houdini

Job description

As we continue expanding our portfolio and investing in the future of game development, we are looking for an experienced CreativeDirector to help shape not only the creative vision of our games, but also the evolution of how game art is created. This role will lead the adoption of AI-assisted content creation across our art organization, helping transform traditional production workflows into modern, scalable, AI-enabled creative pipelines.

Working closely with Creative Leadership, Product, Engineering, Technical Art, and Production, you will establish new ways of working that leverage generative AI while maintaining the artistic quality, originality, and player experience PLAYSTUDIOS is known for.

As a creative leader, you will combine exceptional artistic vision with deep technical curiosity. You'll champion experimentation, develop repeatable AI workflows, mentor artists in prompt development and AI best practices, and help the organization embrace new technologies that accelerate production while elevating quality.

Beyond creating exceptional artwork, you'll be responsible for leading the team's transition toward AI-enabled production, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and creative exploration.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead concept development and production art across our social casino portfolio, live operations, and promotional content.

• Define and maintain the visual quality bar across products while ensuring artistic consistency.

• Partner with Product Managers, Producers, Design, Engineering, and Technical Art throughout the development lifecycle.

• Develop style guides, creative direction, and visual standards for new games and features.

• Mentor artists through creative feedback, coaching, and career development.

• Lead the studio's transition toward AI-assisted art production, establishing scalable workflows that improve quality, efficiency, and speed.

• Serve as the organization's creative AI champion, evaluating emerging generative AI technologies and determining how they can be incorporated into production.

• Build and continuously refine AI-driven pipelines for concept art, ideation, asset generation, variations, localization, animation support, VFX exploration, and production artwork.

• Develop prompt libraries, workflow documentation, quality standards, and governance for AI-generated content.

• Coach, mentor, and train artists to become proficient AI creators, helping the team transition from traditional asset creation to AI-augmented production.

• Partner closely with Technical Art and Engineering to integrate AI tools into the broader production pipeline.

• Evaluate AI-generated outputs, ensuring they meet PLAYSTUDIOS' artistic standards, technical requirements, legal guidelines, and brand quality expectations.

• Continuously measure workflow improvements and identify opportunities where AI can reduce production time while increasing creative output.

• Deliver high-quality assets on schedule and within technical specifications.

• Collaborate with external vendors to maximize AI-assisted production while maintaining artistic consistency.

• Improve production pipelines, asset management, and creative processes through automation and AI-assisted tooling.

• Contribute to the evolution of studio-wide creative technology and production workflows.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, Design, Animation, or equivalent professional experience.

• 5+ years of experience as an Art Director or senior creative leader within the games industry.

• Exceptional 2D and/or 3D artistic skills with strong understanding of composition, color, lighting, typography, visual storytelling, and UX.

• Experience shipping mobile or live-service games.

• Strong understanding of production pipelines, asset optimization, and game development workflows.

• Demonstrated experience using modern generative AI tools (Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Flux, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Runway, Kling, or similar) as part of professional creative workflows.

• Ability to build repeatable AI workflows rather than simply generate imagery.

• Experience mentoring creative teams and driving organizational change.

• Excellent communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.

• Passion for innovation, experimentation, and continuously improving creative processes.

Preferred

• Social Casino or Slot Game development experience.

• Experience designing for Unity pipelines.

• Experience with Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Modo, Houdini, or similar 3D software.

• VFX experience.

• Experience integrating AI into commercial production environments.

• Familiarity with AI governance, copyright considerations, model training limitations, and responsible AI practices.

• Experience building internal AI playbooks, prompt libraries, or production standards.

Benefits and Perks

• 100% health benefit premiums for you and your dependents

• 401K match and Restricted Stock Units

• Flexible vacation policy

• Weekly office catered lunches

• Employee-driven entertainment, happy hours, and team-building events

• Snacks and drinks are available in the kitchen

• Casual work environment