Creative Director, Interactive Experiences

Remote; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Gigantic Playground, a CourtAvenue company, seeks a Creative Director, Interactive Experiences, to lead a team of designers and technologists in crafting immersive experiences across event installations, product launches, and connected retail moments. You will shape the creative bar studio-wide while remaining hands-on to refine details that make experiences feel effortless.

You’ll guide strategy, pitch ideas, and collaborate with client leadership, production, and technology partners, embracing

Qualifications

• 10+ years in interactive, digital, or experience design with team management.
• Strong portfolio across interaction design, visual design, and concept development.
• Direct experience with enterprise or consumer technology clients.
• Willingness to work hands-on with tools (not only reviews).
• Understanding what's possible on current hardware/software.
• Experience using AI tools in the creative process.
• Ability to manage projects from concept to on-site fabrication.
• Familiarity with AR, VR, projection, and sensor-driven installations.

Responsibilities

• Define the point of view behind each interactive project.
• Stay involved through production to preserve original ambition.
• Set and protect high design and interaction quality.
• Manage and develop a team of designers and technologists.
• Serve as primary creative contact for client teams.
• Pitch new ideas and present work to build client confidence.
• Track trends in interactive formats and hardware.
• Introduce AI-assisted tools when they help.
• Mentor junior and mid-level creatives.
• Oversee spatial and environmental design decisions.
• Collaborate with production partners to ground concepts.
• Stay current on trends in interactive art and consumer tech.

Skills

Leadership

Portfolio

Experience design

Enterprise clients

AI in design

AR/VR

Rapid prototyping

Cross-functional

Tools

Figma

AI tools

Job description

Gigantic Playground, a CourtAvenue company, is a fast-growing creative technology agency that creates immersive and interactive experiences that connect people, places, and products in extraordinary ways. Our unique experience + technology approach blends creativity, immersive storytelling, and product innovation to create dynamic experiences that captivate, engage, and delight.

We're a purposely uncommon team, equal parts experience designers, creative technologists, and storytellers, with a mission to reimagine how people live, work, shop, and play.

Interactive work only earns its keep when someone actually stops, engages, and remembers it. That's the standard we hold ourselves to, and it's what this role exists to protect. As Creative Director, Interactive Experiences, you'll be the creative owner of everything we build that people touch, tap, walk into, or play with, from event installations to product launch apps to connected retail moments.

You're equally comfortable pitching the big idea in a client boardroom and sitting with a design team debugging why an interaction feels one beat too slow. We're looking for someone who can hold both altitudes at once: setting a creative bar for the whole studio while staying hands-on enough to shape the details that make an experience feel effortless. Your toolkit spans spatial storytelling, sensory and environmental design, and interactive technology, and you know how to weave all three into experiences that hold up whether someone spends five seconds or five minutes with them.

This is a leadership role with real creative stakes. You'll guide a team of designers and technologists, sit at the table with client leadership, and help define what "interactive" means for our studio as the tools and platforms we design for (AR, VR, connected hardware, generative AI, and whatever comes after) keep shifting.

Responsibilities

• Define the point of view behind each interactive project, turning a client brief or a piece of new technology into an experience concept worth building

• Stay involved through production, not just at kickoff, so the finished experience still reflects the ambition of the original idea

• Set and protect a consistently high bar for design, motion, and interaction quality across every project the studio ships

• Manage and develop a team of designers, creative technologists, and producers, giving them clear creative direction and room to do strong work

• Serve as the primary creative contact for client teams, balancing their business goals against what will actually make for a compelling experience

• Pitch new ideas and present finished work in a way that builds client confidence in the studio's judgment, not just its execution

• Keep a close eye on new interactive formats, hardware, and platforms, and bring recommendations to clients before they ask for them

• Introduce AI-assisted tools into the team's workflow where they genuinely help, whether that's early concepting, rapid prototyping, or content production

• Help junior and mid-level creatives grow by pairing critique with real mentorship, not just notes on a deck

• Oversee spatial and environmental design decisions alongside interactive content, so a physical installation and its digital layer feel like one idea rather than two

• Work with production, fabrication, and technology partners to keep ambitious concepts grounded in what can actually be built, staffed, and maintained on-site

• Stay current on trends in interactive art, entertainment design, and consumer technology, and bring that thinking back into the studio's own work

Requirements

• 10+ years or more in a creative role focused on interactive, digital, or experience design, including several years directly managing a team

• Strong personal taste backed by a portfolio that shows range across interaction design, visual design, and concept development

• Direct experience partnering with enterprise or consumer technology clients, and comfort navigating the layers of stakeholders that come with that kind of account

• Willingness to get into the tools yourself. This isn't a role where you only review other people's Figma files

• A working understanding of what's actually possible on today's hardware and software, so your ideas are ambitious but buildable

• Real, current experience using AI tools as part of your own creative process, not just an interest in the idea of them

• Comfort working across the full arc of a project, from early concept sketches through rapid prototyping to a finished, fabricated, on-site experience

• Familiarity with the broader interactive and immersive landscape (AR, VR, projection, sensor-driven installations) even if your day‑to‑day tools are mostly digital

Preferred Qualifications

• A portfolio piece that clearly moved the needle on how long people engaged with an experience

• Recognition from peers or industry press for work you led

• Clients who ask for you by name when something new and difficult comes up

• Background in large-scale experiential production