Creative Director
CarGurus seeks a creative director with exceptional digital design experience and a track record of bringing consumer brands to life.
Are you energized by the idea of managing and growing our creative department? Are you as interested in UX and functionality as you are in aesthetics? Are you as able to oversee and inspire great work as you are to concept, design and execute it? Are you as organized as you are creative (or at least almost)?
If you answered yes to all of the above, we want to hear from you!
Responsibilities:
- Elevate CarGurus visual identity to better reflect our industry-leading value proposition and brand personality. Serve as a steward of our look, feel and tone.
- Articulate our visual identity through the creation of a brand styleguide and detailed digital style guides and pattern libraries to enable rapid and iterative development of “on brand” UX designs by product and engineering.
- Provide visual design leadership for the ongoing interpretation and evolution of our brand standards in support of new applications across the business
- Create and direct integrated multimedia work including email templates, banner ads, digital videos, offline collateral, content marketing design assets and social media visuals.
- Partner actively with marketing, product and engineering on the redesign of core site pages. Bring a keen aesthetic eye as well as a strong sense of UX design, leading through influence vs ownership of site design
- Help define, implement and oversee processes to ensure that creative deliverables are on time and on strategy
- Prepared to roll up your sleeves to concept, design and execute outstanding creative solutions while at the same time managing, mentoring a team of copy and designer professionals
- Manage and approve freelance resources as needed
Requirements
- 10+ years in art direction/digital graphic design (preferably working for consumer web brands) with at least 5 years of experience managing a team as an associate creative director or creative director
- Deep expertise in digital-first design with a focus on brand impact while never losing site of the importance of UX design and site functionality
- Fluent in UX design, responsive and mobile best practices
- Appreciation for and understanding of AB testing brand designs – if a rigorous test and learn approach sounds wrong to you, CarGurus isn’t the right place for you
- Love of design; you stay current and ahead of latest design trends and digital advancements
- Strong presentation and communication skills (oral and written)
- Ability to clearly convey your creative vision paired with a strong sense of humility to listen and incorporate feedback from others
- Highly collaborative and able to partner with and support the needs of a range of internal stakeholders within marketing, product, engineering and beyond
- Mastery of design tools – Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop, etc.
- Deadline-driven, highly results-oriented and able to juggle and prioritize competing demands for multiple internal stakeholders
- Degree in graphic design or a related field
- Combination of agency background and client side experience preferred