TheAssociate Art Director at Riot oversees the quality and management of a team with a focus on Mission, Direction, and Cohesion. In this role, you will guide the art direction for an unannounced project within one of Riot's core IPs. Your scope spans game art presentation, UI, motion graphics, and VFX, ensuring a cohesive and engaging player experience. You will be responsible for team health, performance, and growth, while driving alignment across engineering, design, narrative, and technical art. You will report to the Art Director.

As an Associate Art Director on an unpublished R&D product, you will lead the game's development from prototype through production. You will define how players experience illustrations as interactive elements through motion, VFX, and UI. You will manage a multidisciplinary team of artists and establish scalable pipelines for integrating and optimizing illustrations for digital platforms. You'll partner closely with other development disciplines to deliver a polished, performant, and immersive product. As part of the creative team, you will help shape product strategy, remove obstacles, and ensure the art supports both gameplay clarity and long-term player engagement.

Responsibilities:

• Set and uphold the art direction across game art presentation, UI, motion graphics and VFX
• Define art goals, production strategies, and timelines
• Build, manage, and mentor a multidisciplinary team of artists
• Lead hiring efforts for the art team including defining roles, reviewing candidates, conducting interviews and making hiring decisions.
• Partner with design to ensure strong gameplay clarity and readability
• Collaborate with engineering and tech art to build scalable, performant game art
• Work with narrative to ensure cohesive and compelling visual storytelling
• Ensure high-quality integration and optimization of game art across required platforms
• Provide clear direction, feedback, and foster a strong team culture
• Establish efficient pipelines for high-volume asset integration and implementation
• Manage external partners for game art, animation and VFX work

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of industry experience creating high quality game art in UI, motion graphics, or VFX
• Experience managing artists and leads across multiple disciplines like UI, motion graphics, VFX, and illustration
• Experience shipping games across various platforms (i.e. mobile, PC, console, etc.), with strong visual direction and execution
• Proven collaboration with engineering, design, narrative, and tech art
• Strong understanding of visual hierarchy, readability, and player-focused design
• Experience working with and adapting existing art assets for real-time applications
• Experience building scalable production workflows

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience working on live-service titles
• Background in Visual Design or UI design
• At least 3 years experience working within various game engines like Unreal, Unity, etc.
• Strong foundation in art fundamentals and visual storytelling
• Understanding of how VFX, animation, and UI support gameplay feedback
• Familiarity with Riot Games' various IPs
• Knowledge of current trends in cross-platform games
• Portfolio demonstrating strength in UI, motion systems, and interactive presentation

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise and a collaborative spirit that prioritizes the delight of players. We will look at your past studies and experience, but for this role, we also look for dedicated people with a personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this is the role for you!

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

• (Los Angeles Only) Base salary range between $185,200.00 - $258,000.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.
• (Mercer Island only) Base salary range between $185,200.00 - $258,000.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.