Creative Director, Interactive Experiences (FTE & Freelance)

Gigantic Playground; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Gigantic Playground in Seattle is seeking a Creative Director, Interactive Experiences to lead a team of designers and technologists, shaping the creative vision for immersive, interactive work across installations, apps, and connected retail moments.

You will collaborate with client leadership, balance business goals with compelling experiences, and push the work forward by exploring new formats, AI tools, and on-site fabrication considerations.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in a creative role focused on interactive/digital or experience design, with team management.
• Portfolio showing range across interaction design, visual design, and concept development.
• Direct experience with enterprise or consumer technology clients and multi-stakeholder environments.
• Willingness to dive into tools personally, not just review others' work.
• Understanding of what is possible with current hardware/software for ambitious yet buildable ideas.
• Real, current experience using AI tools as part of your creative process.
• Experience spanning early concept to rapid prototyping and on-site fabrication.
• Familiarity with AI, AR, projection, and sensor-driven installations in the creative tech landscape.

Responsibilities

• Shape the creative vision for interactive projects and translate briefs into buildable concepts.
• Lead and mentor a team of designers and technologists while maintaining strong client relationships.
• Pitch ideas and present work to build client confidence in strategy and judgment.
• Stay ahead of new interactive formats, hardware, and platforms, guiding recommendations.
• Introduce AI-assisted tools to the workflow to accelerate concepting and production.
• Support junior creatives with critique and mentorship, beyond deck notes.
• Oversee design decisions for space, environment, and interactive content to feel seamless.
• Coordinate with production and partners to ensure concepts are buildable and supported on-site.

Skills

Team leadership

Portfolio across interaction/design

Enterprise client experience

Hands-on tooling

Hardware/software feasibility

AI in creative process

Full project lifecycle

Cross-disciplinary knowledge

Job description

Creative Director, Interactive Experiences (FTE & Freelance)

Overview

We’re a creative technology agency that designs and builds immersive, interactive experiences where digital and physical worlds collide. From park-wide gamification platforms and connected retail environments to multi-sensory brand activations and AI-driven digital products, our work lives at the intersection of bold creative vision and emerging technology.

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.

The Role

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 (connected hardware, generative AI, and whatever comes after) keep shifting.

What You’ll Do

Shape the Creative Vision

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

Lead People and Client Relationships

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

Push the Work Forward

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

Own the Details That Make It Real

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 agency partners to keep ambitious concepts grounded in what can actually be built, staffed, and maintained on‑site

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

What you bring

• 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 creative technology landscape (AI, AR, projection, sensor-driven installations) even if your day‑to‑day tools are mostly digital

Bonus Points

• 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
• Located in Seattle or San Diego preferred.

Gigantic Playground, a CourtAvenue company, is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. We recruit qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or citizenship status.