Lead Art Director

About the Role

As a Lead Art Director you are passionate about experience innovation and eager to push the boundaries of what's possible. You bring 8 years of experience, a growth mindset and a drive to make a lasting impact. The Lead Art Director is an accomplished art director and visual designer with exceptional craft and expertise across advertising, interaction design, brand experience, and AI-enabled design practices. Working within Valtech's Creative Practices discipline across the Americas, this role is primarily responsible for creating compelling, high-quality ads and concepts, and secondarily designing digital experiences that bring brands to life while solving meaningful client and user challenges. The ideal candidate combines a strong eye for art direction, a high visual aesthetic, and a passion for innovative creativity. They are a proactive conceptual thinker who brings ideas, references, and a clear point of view to the table, equally comfortable creating and art directing advertising concepts and campaigns as they are crafting beautiful interfaces.

Responsibilities

• Create and execute highly polished visual design concepts and campaigns that are consistently on brand and directly aligned with client objectives and business outcomes.
• Design digital experiences across web, mobile, and emerging platforms, including typography, layout, visual systems, interfaces, interaction patterns, branding elements, and component libraries.
• Translate brand expression into scalable digital experiences and user interfaces that balance creativity, usability, and performance.
• Craft and present high-fidelity design concepts and creative directions, including references, sketches, storyboards, mood boards, prototypes, and conceptual design explorations.
• Actively participate in workshops, brainstorming sessions, creative reviews, and design critiques, contributing ideas, inspiration, and innovative solutions.
• Develop interactive prototypes and motion studies using Figma and other design tools to communicate design intent and user experience behaviors.
• Create, evolve, and contribute to design systems, component libraries, brand guidelines, style guides, and other artefacts that support consistency and scalability.
• Apply accessibility best practices and inclusive design principles to ensure experiences are usable by diverse audiences and aligned with recognized standards.
• Collaborate closely with UX Designers, Strategists, Copywriters, Creative Directors, Developers, and other visual designers throughout the project lifecycle.
• Partner with development teams to ensure design intent is preserved through implementation.
• Maintain exceptionally high standards of design quality, presentation, documentation, and client engagement.
• Stay current with emerging design methodologies, AI-enabled workflows, tools, and technologies, proactively identifying opportunities to improve the team's capabilities and processes.
• Support and mentor Junior Designers through constructive feedback, collaboration, and best-practice sharing.
• Build and sustain strong working relationships across teams, disciplines, and client organizations.

Must Have Qualifications

To be considered for this role, you must meet the following essential qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in a leading agency, consultancy, studio, or similar environment designing advertisements and digital experiences.
• A portfolio demonstrating exceptional visual craft, art direction, conceptual thinking and brand-led experience design.
• Deep expertise in visual design, UI design, and digital brand experience across multiple channels and platforms.
• Experience translating strategic objectives, user needs, and brand narratives into compelling digital experiences.
• Excellent communication in English, with the ability to engage clients and teams across North America through storytelling, presentations, and stakeholder engagement.
• Ability to confidently articulate and defend design decisions while remaining open to feedback and collaboration.
• Strong understanding of interaction design principles, information architecture, and user-centered design methodologies, with experience translating concepts into interactive prototypes that enhance storytelling and usability.
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities, work effectively under pressure, and deliver high-quality outcomes within tight timelines.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize effectively and maintain focus throughout the design process.
• AI & Emerging Design Practices: Demonstrated experience using AI-enabled design workflows to improve ideation, visual exploration, asset creation, prototyping, content generation, and productivity.
• Advanced proficiency with Figma and the broader Figma ecosystem, including AI-driven capabilities and plugins.
• Experience using image generation and other creative AI tools as part of a modern design practice.
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a desire to help evolve how design is practiced within the organization.

Nice to Have Qualifications

The following are considered a strong advantage:

• Experience with advertising and design in the travel and tourism space strongly considered.
• Experience with luxury hospitality, travel, aviation, or premium consumer brands a plus.
• Experience working with multicultural and distributed teams across regions and time zones.
• Experience leading design-system governance across large, multi-brand organizations.
• Comfortable working independently while proactively seeking input, feedback, and collaboration when needed.
• Experience working within multidisciplinary teams combining strategy, UX, technology, content, and creative disciplines.

Benefits

• Flexibility, with remote and hybrid work options (country-dependent)
• Career advancement, with international mobility and professional development programs
• Learning and development, with access to cutting-edge tools, training and industry experts
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, plus employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts

Pay

This is a full time position based in the United States. The offered salary range is $100,000-$140,000 annually, depending on experience and location.

Schedule

Full time position.