Associate Creative Director

About the Role

As an Associate Creative Director at Critical Mass, you're deeply involved in every stage of the creative process—concepting, art directing, refining, and elevating the work. You sell ideas you believe in, push back when necessary, and lead with taste and intention, maintaining a high visual standard and a genuine point of view. You build creative leadership through craft, standards, and mentorship, fostering growth in your team.

Responsibilities

• Concept and develop ideas across brand, campaign, and experience design, ensuring depth and originality from the big creative thought to final visual execution.
• Collaborate closely with an ACD copy partner to sharpen ideas through partnership.
• Lead and direct the creative team, guiding art directors, designers, and motion artists toward the right solution.
• Bring a clear creative and visual point of view to cross-discipline work, translating strategy, UX thinking, and content direction into cohesive ideas.
• Present and sell creative ideas to clients with clarity, confidence, and conviction to get great work made.
• Push back on briefs that need challenging and defend work that deserves defending as a consistent standard.
• Ensure art direction serves the overarching idea, strengthens the creative platform, and maintains high visual quality.
• Be the uncompromising eye in the room—detail-obsessed, standard-setting, and relentless about every visual decision.
• Own the work through production, attending shoots, directing production teams, and ensuring results match or exceed your vision.
• Understand how great art direction adapts across experiences, platforms, and mediums without losing the core idea.
• Work with design directors and creative engineering teams on the visual expression of design systems, defining boundaries of contribution.
• Use AI tools as a genuine part of your creative practice, pushing output further rather than cutting corners.
• Earn client trust through strong work, clear thinking, and effective communication at every level of the relationship.
• Drive projects from briefing through delivery, maintaining creative momentum and protecting quality.
• Bring proactive creative thinking to accounts, identifying opportunities to do more interesting work beyond the brief.
• Mentor and develop junior and mid-level creatives with rigorous, generous, and growth-focused feedback.
• Set the creative temperature for the team, fostering energy, high standards, and a culture where good isn’t good enough.
• Stay deeply current on culture, design, fashion, film, art, music, and technology, and integrate these influences into the work.

Requirements

• 5+ years of creative experience in an agency or equivalent environment, with a focus on art direction, design, and campaign work.
• A portfolio that demonstrates visual craft and conceptual thinking, featuring strong, distinctive work across brand, campaign, digital experience, and content.
• A sharp, informed aesthetic sensibility shaped by genuine engagement with design, culture, and the world.
• Experience presenting and selling creative work to clients, with strong communication skills and confidence.
• Working command of design systems at the visual and campaign level, with the ability to apply and elevate them.
• Strong working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite and Figma; experience with motion design tools is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with AI creative tools and a thoughtful, critical approach to integrating them into your practice.
• Experience directing and mentoring other creatives, providing clear, constructive feedback that improves both the work and the people.
• A genuine passion for the craft and the standards to protect it.

Pay

New York: $130,000–$150,000

Schedule

Omnicom’s policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, with the potential for increased in-office requirements over time.