Associate Creative Director

About the role

Tailwind Nutrition is a company that supports endurance athletes with simple, complete nutrition. They are looking for an Associate Creative Director to lead the creative vision for their brand.

Responsibilities

• Create brand and product campaign strategies that help Tailwind break through — translating athlete insights and brand positioning into compelling creative concepts
• Lead campaign ideation from brief through execution, maintaining a clear creative vision across channels (paid social, email, organic, web, packaging, events)
• Build and evolve Tailwind's visual language and tone of voice to ensure consistency and impact across every touchpoint
• Collaborate with marketing to align creative strategy with campaign goals, audience targeting, and performance metrics
• Stay ahead of creative trends in endurance sports, outdoor culture, and DTC brand marketing — bringing fresh thinking and competitive awareness
• Digital, Web & UX Creative
• Own the creative direction for Tailwind's digital presence, including website, landing pages, and e-commerce — ensuring design decisions serve both brand and conversion
• Apply UX sensibility to digital creative: understand how users navigate, what drives them to act, and how layout, hierarchy, and copy create effective experiences
• Partner with e-commerce and marketing teams to develop high-performing creative for paid media, email, and organic channels
• Ensure digital creative is optimized for performance without sacrificing brand integrity
• Concept and design Tailwind merchandise (drops, events, promo), coordinating production timelines
• Support packaging design projects in partnership with internal stakeholders and external agencies
• Coordinate with photographers and videographers from pre-production through final asset delivery
• Bring light-to-moderate video editing capability to support social and campaign content
• Proficiency with AI & related creative tools to help build upon creative iterations and asset library
• Own the creative workflow across campaigns, launches, evergreen content, packaging updates, and promotions
• Build and manage creative briefs, timelines, deliverables, and approvals across multiple projects simultaneously
• Cross-functionally with marketing, e-commerce, operations, and product teams
• Build systems and processes that keep creative work efficient, clear, and consistent
• Manage Tailwind's external creative partners including agencies, freelance designers, photographers, and videographers
• Lead briefing, scheduling, feedback loops, and delivery timelines with all external partners
• Ensure partners understand and adhere to Tailwind's brand standards

Requirements

5–8 years of experience in creative direction, brand strategy, or creative leadership — ideally at a DTC, sports, outdoor, or consumer brand

Proven ability to develop and execute brand campaigns from concept through delivery

Strong digital and UX sensibility: you understand what makes great web and digital creative and can speak to layout, conversion, and user experience

A portfolio that demonstrates both creative vision and executional craft — campaigns, brand systems, digital work, and/or packaging

Experience managing agencies and freelancers with clear, constructive direction

Strong project management skills with ability to juggle multiple priorities at high quality

Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator), Figma, and project management platforms

Experience with packaging design and e-commerce or performance marketing creative

Light-to-moderate video editing experience

A genuine connection to endurance sports, outdoor culture, or athlete-driven brands

A bias toward finding smarter, faster ways of working through strong organization and modern tools

Qualifications

Competitive salary: $75,000–$95,000 annually depending on experience

Generous PTO and paid holidays

100% employer-paid medical insurance (base plan) for full-time employees; 25% dependent coverage; 50% employer-paid Dental & Vision

401k plan with employer contribution

Free Tailwind products to fuel your own training

Skills

Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator)

Figma

Project management platforms

Benefits

Competitive salary: $75,000–$95,000 annually depending on experience

Generous PTO and paid holidays

100% employer-paid medical insurance (base plan) for full-time employees; 25% dependent coverage; 50% employer-paid Dental & Vision

401k plan with employer contribution

Free Tailwind products to fuel your own training

Pay

$75,000–$95,000 annually depending on experience

Schedule

Full-time, Exempt · 40 hrs/week, Mon–Fri

Contact

To apply, send your resume, cover letter, and portfolio (campaigns, brand systems, digital work, packaging, or project management examples) to jobs+acd@tailwindnutrition.com — no phone calls please.