Senior Art Director

M+C Saatchi UK; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

12 weeks full parental leave

HSA medical plan

401(k) match

23 days PTO

Job summary

M+C Saatchi UK is hiring a Senior Art Director in Washington, DC to spearhead the creative vision for federal missions. This hybrid role focuses on developing and executing impactful visual identities, ensuring consistency across digital and print materials.

Ideal candidates should have strong leadership capabilities, expertise in Adobe Creative Cloud, and a solid understanding of design principles. The position offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package.

Qualifications

• Strong ability to define visual strategy and lead creative processes.
• Exceptional communication skills for stakeholder engagement.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and ensure high-quality execution.
• Deep understanding of design principles including color theory and typography.

Responsibilities

• Lead the visual identity and brand direction across diverse channels.
• Oversee design planning, storyboarding, and visual storytelling.
• Collaborate with teams to unify creative approaches and maintain brand consistency.
• Analyze creative performance metrics for continuous improvement.

Skills

Creative leadership

Communication skills

Attention to detail

Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud

Understanding of visual hierarchy

Tools

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe InDesign

Adobe After Effects

Job description

M&C Saatchi World Services is a full-service marketing company renowned for using commercial advertising to solve the world’s toughest challenges. World Services is a specialty branch of M&C Saatchi Group, and we provide strategic communications, behavior change, and marketing support to Public Sector clients with special emphasis on the US Federal Government and State, Local, Tribal, & Territorial leaders.

M&C Saatchi World Services US is seeking a Senior Art Director to lead the creative vision, visual identity, and storytelling direction for a wide portfolio of content supporting a large federal and DoD-aligned mission environment.

About The Role

This role sets the visual standards for enterprise-wide digital, print, multimedia, and campaign materials, ensuring consistency, brand alignment, and impactful visual communication. The Art Director oversees creative conceptualization, design execution, and cross-team collaboration to deliver high-quality, user-centered creative products. This position serves as the senior creative authority guiding visual strategy, brand governance, and content innovation across all communication channels.

This is a hybrid role; however, the ideal candidate will live in either the greater New York City area or the greater District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) region.

What You'll Do

• Lead the development and evolution of the enterprise visual identity, brand platform, and creative direction.
• Oversee concept creation, storyboarding, design planning, and visual storytelling for digital and print materials.
• Direct creative teams in producing graphics, campaign assets, multimedia, and integrated visual products.
• Ensure consistency of brand voice and visual design across all communication channels and content types.
• Collaborate with UX, multimedia, marketing, and communications teams to unify creative approaches.
• Review and approve design deliverables, ensuring adherence to accessibility, quality, and brand standards.
• Guide development of templates, component libraries, creative toolkits, and visual governance artifacts.
• Translate complex strategic and technical requirements into compelling visual narratives.
• Oversee vendor or subcontractor creative output to ensure alignment with enterprise expectations.
• Support high-priority campaigns, leadership communications, and mission-critical design needs.
• Analyze creative performance metrics and incorporate insights into continuous creative improvement.

You’ll bring

• Strong creative leadership and ability to define visual strategy.
• Exceptional communication skills for interacting with stakeholders and design teams.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive high-quality creative execution.
• Strong attention to detail, brand consistency, and design rigor.
• Ability to guide, mentor, and elevate multidisciplinary creative teams.
• Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects).
• Deep understanding of visual hierarchy, layout, color theory, typography, and accessibility (508/WCAG).
• Experience with design systems, component libraries, and brand governance.
• Ability to translate abstract concepts and strategic inputs into compelling visual communication.
• Demonstrated success leading visual strategy across digital, print, and multimedia platforms.
• Experience producing unified visual systems, brand standards, and enterprise design frameworks.

What You Get

We offer a competitive salary ($120,000-$145,000) and a benefits package designed to support your health, family life, financial wellbeing, and growth.

Family & Parental Support

• 12 weeks’ full pay for Primary Carers and 6 weeks for Secondary Carers (after one year of service; return requirements apply for subsequent leave)
• Applies to birth, adoption, and surrogacy
• Up to 10 days’ paid fertility leave per year (5 per cycle)
• 2 days’ paid leave for new grandparents
• $2,500 annual interest-free parental loan
• $6,000 interest-free fertility treatment loan

Healthcare & Wellbeing

• Three medical plans (HSA at $0 cost; EPO 75% employer funded; PPO 65% employer funded)
• $0 employee-cost dental and vision
• 10 days’ health leave per year (mental and physical)
• 24/7 mental health support through Self Space
• Wellhub subscription

Financial & Practical Support

• 401(k) match (3% after 3 months; 4% after 1 year)
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• 10 days’ paid military leave
• Full pay for jury duty (state/city payments declined)
• Uber/taxi home after 9:30pm

Time Off & Flexibility

• 23 days’ PTO (with 3 discretionary carryover days; CA/CO policies follow state mandate)
• 10 federal holidays, plus the day after Thanksgiving
• Option to swap 2 federal holidays (excluding Thanksgiving and the day after)
• Office closed between Christmas and New Year
• 10 days’ special emergency leave (including bereavement)
• 10 days’ volunteering leave (5 paid, 5 unpaid)
• Half-day for blood donation
• Work from anywhere for up to 2 weeks per year (subject to approval)

Culture & Development

• $300 annual cultural stimulation allowance (accrued monthly; available after 90 days)
• Weekly Thursday happy hour
• Mentorship and Buddy programmes

About M&C Saatchi World Services

M&C Saatchi World Services is a specialist division of M+C Saatchi Group, the world’s largest independent communications network. Our specialists work in office hubs across six continents, grounding our global expertise in local nuance.

We offer award-winning commercial communications capabilities, which are utilized by global organizations to address the world’s most complex problems across defence, development, diplomacy, homeland and national security, law and order, health, education, and the environment.

We work with clients that want to help the hardest-to-reach, hardest-to-influence audiences. This includes a range of Western Government departments, such as DOS and USAID; partner governments, including the U.K. and Australia; and prominent IGOs/NGOs such as the U.N.

We are a comms agency that works on behaviour change projects typically focused on issues related to Security, Defence and Stabilization. Whether it’s producing critically acclaimed feature films in Africa, to TV shows in the Middle East, to pop music videos in Asia, we have a record of leveraging creativity to access communities anywhere in the world.