Freelance Creative Director, Design

VSA’s Design Practice is responsible for bringing our clients’ stories, visions and voices to life. At the intersection of Strategy and Digital, we make ideas tangible and meaningful for the audiences that matter, in a cross-platform, media-agnostic way.

The Freelance Creative Director will achieve and maintain a high quality level for all work produced for assigned accounts and contribute to the NBD / growth of those accounts. He/she will embrace and support VSA’s policies and culture and will have the personal goal of producing the best quality work at all times.

REQUIREMENTS

• Ensure and maintain a consistent, high quality level of work for all assigned accounts.
• Lead the creative on one primary account.
• Ability to support a CD, Writing as a duo on client project
• Communicate account knowledge with the team, so they understand and articulate brands according to established guidelines and philosophies.
• Establish overall art direction for client programs and projects, synthesize and translates creative briefs to the team, orchestrate all creative aspects, and coordinate all constituents.
• Represent Design in new business meetings; understand and articulate VSA's Design capabilities.
• Identify potential growth areas of assigned accounts with Client Engagement and help shape and grow client relationships.
• Present to clients and to internal teams to run productive design meetings.
• Engage in high level discussions with peers and managers about the firm.
• Work closely with Project Managers and Client Engagement leads to scope projects accurately and to establish project plans.
• Work with Discipline Leads to apply and implement agreed-upon processes among Practice.
• Manage multidisciplinary teams on multiple projects, ensuring that quality is high, milestones are met, and the team is appropriately utilized.
• Track team time billing to ensure timely submittal of timesheets and expense reports.
• Identify and address inefficiencies among team and Practice proactively.
• Leverage and support peers (brainstorms, critiques, etc.) and team members, ensuring that everyone has a voice and positive collaboration is achieved.
• Offer appropriate growth opportunities to team members.
• Identify tools and resources to improve efficiency.
• Evaluate (or participates in the evaluation of) team members at yearly reviews.
• Manage staffing needs to include, but not limited to, making hiring decisions, discharging, transferring, and promoting employees as warranted.
• Identify developmental needs of staff, including training, communicating and implementing productivity standards, evaluating work, and providing instruction.
• Provide support for design work, if workload requires.
• Additional responsibilities as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience in Design.
• 3+ years of experience effectively leading a team.
• Experience consulting to large B2B clients.
• Expertise in Adobe Creative suite.
• Possession of an undergraduate degree.
• Basic knowledge of interactive design and ability to translate design from print to digital in concept phase. Full versatility in both print/interactive design is a plus.
• Ability to be organized, systematic, and strategic thinker.
• Capable of keeping an eye on the big picture, as well as the details, to drive results.
• Adept at preemptively identifying problems and devising solutions.
• Excellent design, color and typographic skills.
• Superior verbal and written communication skills to engage, persuade, and motivate clients, team members, and peers and to inspire collaboration.
• A commitment to high quality work and to positive and productive relationships with all - clients, team members, peers, managers, etc.
• Skills in complex problem solving, judgment, critical thinking and decision-making.
• Ability to be versatile and handle multiple projects and re-prioritizations.
• Ability to organize information, prioritize, have attention to detail, and accurately follow procedures.
• Ability to maintain self-motivation and to work independently in team environments.