Senior Art Director

Saxum is a strategic consultancy and transformation partner for visionary leaders in bedrock organizations—those serving citizens, community, and country. AI-native and foresight-informed by design, we unify brand, communications, experience, and media to build stakeholder trust and durable advantage. At Saxum, change isn’t just an expectation; it’s how we work. We foster curiosity, collaboration, and accountability, creating an environment where our team thrives and delivers bold, innovative solutions. Our values are BOLD:

• Brave: We speak up, stand up, and act when others stand still.
• Original: We champion new ideas and embrace unique perspectives.
• Lively: We bring energy, curiosity, and humanity to our work.
• Driven: We take ownership and pursue meaningful results.

About the role

The Senior Art Director is a highly autonomous senior creative responsible for developing exceptional creative work from concept through execution. This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys creating, not simply directing, great work. You'll partner with leaders across strategy, account service, digital, content, and production to translate business challenges into compelling creative solutions across brand, digital, social, campaign, web, and experiential work. Rather than managing a creative department, you'll own projects independently, collaborate across disciplines, and confidently move work forward while knowing when to seek input and challenge ideas.

Success in this role requires exceptional design craft, conceptual thinking, strong production skills, proficiency with AI-powered creative workflows, and the ability to operate with a high degree of independence. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable presenting big ideas to clients, refining typography, editing a social video, building motion graphics, or exploring new AI-enabled creative workflows.

Responsibilities

Creative Ownership & Concept Development

• Lead concept development across brand, campaign, digital, print, social, web, and experiential initiatives.
• Independently drive projects from brief through final production with minimal oversight.
• Translate strategic insights into compelling visual systems, campaigns, and experiences.
• Partner with strategy, account, digital, content, and production leaders throughout project development.
• Present creative concepts and articulate the strategic rationale behind design decisions.
• Integrate AI tools into concept development, production, and creative workflows to improve quality, speed, and creative exploration.
• Stay current on emerging design technologies and help evolve Saxum's creative capabilities.
• Contribute creative thinking and visual storytelling to pitches, proposals, and new business opportunities.

Design & Production

• Produce exceptional creative across digital, print, web, social, presentation, and campaign environments.
• Develop multiple creative concepts and iterate quickly based on strategic feedback.
• Design websites, landing pages, campaign assets, and digital experiences using Figma and related tools.
• Create polished presentation materials for workshops, executive presentations, and client engagements.
• Produce light motion graphics, animation, and visual storytelling using After Effects or similar tools.
• Edit short-form video content for social media, digital campaigns, and thought leadership.
• Prepare production-ready files across print, digital, and motion deliverables.
• Maintain exceptional attention to typography, composition, visual systems, and craft.
• Apply UX, accessibility, and responsive design best practices where appropriate.
• Collaborate with photographers, developers, illustrators, writers, and production partners to bring ideas to life.

Collaboration & Communication

• Is highly self-directed and comfortable operating with minimal supervision.
• Takes ownership of work and consistently follows projects through to completion.
• Balances strategic thinking with exceptional hands-on execution.
• Thrives in collaborative environments while requiring little day-to-day direction.
• Is naturally curious and continually invests in improving their craft.
• Actively experiments with AI and emerging creative technologies to improve both process and outcomes.
• Maintains high standards of quality, organization, and attention to detail across every deliverable.
• Help manage project timelines, scopes, and deliverables.
• Oversee relationships with vendors, contractors, and external collaborators.
• Ensure creative assets are delivered on-brand, on-time, and on-strategy.

Requirements

• While a college degree would be welcomed, knowledge and experience is often just as valuable.
• 8–12+ years of agency or consultancy experience with an exceptional portfolio demonstrating both conceptual thinking and hands-on execution.

Skills

Have an extensive toolbelt with some or all of the following types of tools:

• Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier Pro, After Effects)
• Figma and Miro
• Capcut, Canva, and Adobe Express
• Webflow or similar web design tools
• AI tools like Firefly, Midjourney, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Weave, Higgfield, etc.
• Project collaboration tools such as ClickUp, Asana, or others

Schedule

Oklahoma City candidates preferred. Hybrid candidates should be able to travel to and work from the Oklahoma City office for 2-3 days at least once per month as a hybrid role.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and short-term disability insurance
• PTO
• IRA retirement plans for team members