Creative Director - Key Art

MACH27; Culver City (CA); On-site; USD 158,863 - 265,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Benefits package

401k match

Paid PTO

Life insurance

Development fund

Flexible hours

Job summary

MACH27 is a Los Angeles-based creative and design agency seeking a Creative Director to lead the department, elevate creative output, and nurture client relationships. You will guide a diverse team, set standards, and drive competitive campaigns across platforms.

Ideal candidates bring 13+ years of creative leadership, deep key art and entertainment marketing experience, and expert knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite.

Qualifications

• Proven track record as a senior creative leader with award-winning work.
• Expert knowledge of key art, entertainment marketing, and multi-platform campaigns.
• Strong client-facing presence and ability to manage P&L awareness.
• Excellent communication and mentorship skills.

Responsibilities

• Set and uphold the creative standard for the entire agency.
• Pitch, ideate, and develop bold campaigns that elevate client brands.
• Lead the creative team through every phase of a project.
• Drive creative strategy using audience insights and data.
• Build strong client relationships as their primary creative partner.
• Mentor and develop the creative team; manage resources and staffing.
• Oversee brand standards and ensure consistency across accounts.
• Collaborate with leadership on promotional and marketing efforts.

Skills

Art direction

Creative leadership

Brand strategy

Adobe Creative Suite

Client management

Mentoring

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite

Job description

Who We Are

MACH27 is a Los Angeles-based creative and design agency providing services in entertainment creative, multi-platform design packages, digital advertising strategy, key art design, print, out-of-home, photo and video content production, brand campaign ideation, and production. We are high-volume, fast-paced, and have an open mentoring culture with great industry leaders. With your expertise, esprit-de-corps, and passion, you will play a critical role in generating world-class art with a diverse, hard-working, and eclectic crew. We are proud and honored to collaborate with some of the best world-class partners including Disney, Hallmark Media, Max, IMAX, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Pluto TV, Snap, and Sony.

The Role

The Creative Director is MACH27's primary day-to-day creative leader. This role is responsible for creative quality across all agency output, client relationship management, team development, and the operational efficiency of the creative department. The CD generates ideas, leads pitches, sets standards, and holds the team accountable to them. This is a true blend of a leadership and creative role.

How You’ll Contribute

• Set and uphold the creative standard for the entire agency; define what excellence looks like in every type of work the agency produces, communicate that standard clearly and consistently, and hold yourself and the team accountable to it on every project regardless of size, budget, or timeline
• Pitch, ideate, and develop bold, culturally resonant campaigns that elevate client brands and break through in a cluttered, competitive landscape
• Lead the creative team through every phase of a project from kickoff to post-mortem — provide clear, decisive creative direction at each stage, make confident calls when the team is at an impasse, and guide the work toward an outcome that is both creatively exceptional and strategically sound
• Drive creative strategy using qualitative and quantitative data — bring audience insights, performance data, and market intelligence into the concepting process, communicate these findings to leadership regularly, and use them to continuously sharpen the agency's creative approach and competitive positioning
• Build and maintain strong, trust-based relationships with clients; serve as their primary creative partner, develop a deep understanding of their business, their audience, and their brand, and show up to every interaction as someone who is as invested in their success as they are
• Develop and grow the creative team through active mentorship, structured development planning, and a culture that consistently rewards curiosity, craft, and creative courage; assess the strengths and gaps on the team honestly and continuously — develop talent in those gaps where possible, and communicate proactively to leadership when the team is not positioned to deliver at the level clients expect; MACH27 should never learn about a resourcing or skills gap through an underdelivered project
• Own all aspects of the agency's brand standards (visual identity, creative style, tone of voice) ensuring consistency, integrity, and freshness across every client account and every piece of work that carries the agency's name
• Partner with the CEO and business development team to lead the agency's own promotional and marketing efforts across social channels, pitch documents, and RFP proposals, including generating estimates and defining scope of work
• Work with the CEO to develop, refine, and evolve agency-wide creative methodologies and processes — identify what's working, what isn't, and what the team needs to operate at a higher level, and build systems that improve quality, efficiency, and team satisfaction over time
• Foster a creative culture that attracts and retains exceptional talent — be the kind of leader people want to work for, the kind of Creative Director whose team produces the best work of their careers, and the kind of voice that shapes how the agency thinks about creativity, culture, and what it means to do this work well
• Establish and evolve agency-wide standards for how AI tools are integrated into the creative workflow; evaluate emerging tools strategically, make informed adoption decisions, and ensure the team is using AI to enhance creative quality and operational efficiency, not to replace original thinking
• Advise PMs on timeline, resourcing, and scope — be a senior operational partner in the health and velocity of the work
• Lead client and leadership conversations about campaign strategy and creative solutions with the fluency of someone who has thought three steps ahead — know the questions that are coming, have the answers ready, and shift from presenting to problem-solving in real time without losing the room; build relationships with new business prospects with the same intentionality brought to existing clients
• Model and cultivate a feedback culture across the creative team — deliver specific, actionable positive and constructive criticism consistently, not just in formal reviews, but as a daily practice
• Own the team's time as deliberately as own time — when client work is light, have internal projects organized, queued, and ready to assign; the team should never be idle
• Maintain a firm grasp on the financial health of the department — understand the P&L, monitor how the team's time is being booked across projects, and flag proactively when hours are trending over or resources are being misallocated
• Identify and manage freelance and vendor talent like photographers, retouchers, and outside creative resources, ensuring outside work meets MACH27's standards and projects remain within budget
• Partner with HR to recruit, hire, and onboard creative talent — building a team that reflects MACH27's standards, creative ambitions, and long-term capacity needs
• Push creative limits; set new standards for excellence while bringing strategy, insights, and cultural awareness into the heart of every creative conversation
• Do work that earns recognition — MACH27 has won Clio Gold and Silver awards and expects CDs to bring that level of ambition to every brief
• Other duties as assigned

Who You Are

• 13+ years of experience as a creative leader with key art expertise
• A portfolio that demonstrates a career-long track record of creative excellence, conceptual leadership, and the ability to produce award-caliber work across formats, genres, and campaign types
• Expert knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite, with the ability to engage meaningfully at a production level to provide technically informed creative direction at all times
• Strategic command of project management tools and agency operations — able to use data from tools like Asana or Monday.com to make informed decisions about team structure, resourcing, and creative output across the full agency portfolio
• Deep expertise in key art, entertainment marketing, and multi-platform campaign development across theatrical, streaming, gaming, music, live events, and emerging formats
• Proven ability to develop and implement creative methodologies, brand standards, and agency-wide processes that improve quality, consistency, and team performance over time
• Strong photography technical skills (compositing, problem-solving, color grading, light and shadow) are at the level where they inform how others are directed, not what is done personally
• Expert knowledge of the business side of design — understands budgeting, scoping, profitability, client economics, and revenue accountability; can read the departmental P&L and the team's time reports with the same fluency brought to a creative brief; and brings the same rigor to client retention as to client acquisition
• Proven track record managing and mentoring a team of diverse creative talent and making them measurably better
• Strong client-facing presence; a trusted creative and operational partner, not just a vendor
• Able to shift fluidly between creative vision and operational execution, both maker and manager, without using one as an excuse to neglect the other
• An exceptional communicator with clients, leadership, and the team; delivers feedback, both positive and constructive, with clarity, consistency, and care; the team always knows where they stand and what they need to do to grow
• Highly organized and proactive in managing the department’s time and capacity; anticipates gaps, prepares internal work in advance, and ensures the team is always productive, engaged, and moving forward
• Strategic about talent: understands the strengths and limitations of the team, develops people deliberately, and speaks up early when a gap threatens the agency’s ability to deliver; does not wait for a missed deadline to raise the alarm
• Culturally attuned and forward-looking — sees trends before they peak, follows what's happening in entertainment, design, technology, and culture, and positions MACH27 to lead
• Establishes and evolves agency-wide standards for AI tool usage across the creative team: evaluates emerging tools with a strategic lens, makes informed adoption decisions, and ensures AI enhances creative quality and operational efficiency without substituting for original thinking
• Growth mindset; invests in the team's development as much as their own
• Executive-level fluency in Google Suite — able to build, lead, and adapt high‑stakes presentations for clients, prospects, and internal leadership in real time

Why Work Here

We want to make sure you’re taken care of while we create world class art. MACH27 is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package to our team members alongside competitive compensation. We asked our team members what benefits they like the most and this is what they said:

• Full benefits package (health/dental/vision/HSA)
• $50,000 fully company‑paid life insurance policy
• 401(k) with a 4% match (and no vesting period)
• 25 Days of Paid Time Off (PTO), plus twelve national holidays off and additional early release days
• Yearly performance, compensation, and inflation adjustment
• Potential year‑end bonus
• Employee wellness benefits and mental health support
• Flexible location and hours policy
• Yearly employee development fund
• Transparent Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) and culture initiatives
• Regular employee engagement events
• Mentorship focused development
• Creative office space near downtown Culver City

Compensation

The starting base compensation range for this position in the selected city is $158,863 - $265,000 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s certifications, location, prior experience, and qualifications.

MACH27 uses Aon Radford as our primary compensation database for benchmarking, with millions of data points behind the job level/description data we consider in structuring the range for each role.

Don’t see your ideal role posted? Please feel free to apply anyway by sending a resume to [e-mail].

MACH27 is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to making our team as inclusive and diverse as our audience and partners. We are dedicated to providing equal opportunity and reasonable accommodations for all employees. Come explore MACH27, where innovation, creativity, and passion come together.