Description

Reporting to the Vice President, Growth and Product Marketing, within the Corporate Marketing Department, the Design Director will be responsible for the visual and verbal representation of our brands across the customer journey, including owned, paid, and experiential marketing channels. You will lead a small team of in-house designers, and guide external agency and freelance partners to advance the modern expression of our brands, ensuring consistent, high-quality visuals across all marketing touchpoints. You will partner with stakeholders across the organization to develop and bring to life creative concepts that captivate our audiences, showcasing our award-winning content, products, and events.

Responsibilities:

• Conceptualize and produce compelling integrated marketing creative in support of Crain's subscription, events, and advertising businesses
• Evolve the visual and verbal representation of our brands, establishing and maintaining creative guidelines and best practices, with responsibility for evangelizing across internal and external partners
• Optimize the creative development operating model including workflow, project management process and overall organization of team deliverables; manage team's skill sets, workload, and deadlines
• Contribute to and manage production of marketing assets for all channels: web, digital marketing, advertising, social media, sales enablement, email marketing as well as some print and direct mail marketing
• Manage and motivate an internal team to do ambitious work, elevate our brands and infuse data and measurement into our creative practice
• Help select, manage, and maintain relationships with external agencies and freelancers
• Stay up-to-date with industry trends, developments, and tools to ensure our visual and verbal identity is ever-evolving

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in graphic design, programming, marketing, advertising or related field
• Online portfolio linked in your resume, that demonstrates creative work that unifies strategy and execution across a range of channels, audiences, and aesthetics
• 7+ years of experience in creative roles at a digital publication, creative agency, or consumer brand; 1-2 years in a management position
• Experience developing and producing holistic, integrated campaigns across digital, motion, OOH, and events
• The demonstrated ability to use data, performance metrics, and insights to inform creative approach and evolution
• Fluency with digital content art direction and production, directing internal and external resources across creative functions
• Hands-on experience with typography and image standards for web
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, InDesign and related design production and presentation software and tools
• Strong managerial and mentoring skills, and a desire to develop and coach your direct reports.
• A partner-oriented natural communicator who can simplify complex ideas and present them confidently up and across the organization.
• Ability to multitask, prioritize projects, and communicate progress
• Experience managing budgets, vendors and freelancers

Preferences

• Experience in publishing, media or other subscription-based industry a plus
• Experience with subscription products
• Knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript
• Email marketing development experience

Pay Transparency Disclosure:

The estimated salary range for this position is $85,000 to $110,000.

The final salary offering will take into account a wide range of factors, including experience, accomplishments and location. The salary range provided should not be considered as a salary limit or cap. In addition to base salary, Crain also offers competitive benefits including retirement plan savings contributions and bonus opportunities based on individual and company performance.

This position is exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and is not eligible for overtime pay.

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Environmental Demands

Where you work matters. The job posting will provide specific information on where and when your amazing work would be performed. Employee work location is determined by the needs of the specific team and may include on-site, hybrid or remote. Employee work location is subject to change.

• An "in-office" role would require the employee to come into the office most days with occasional flexibility to work remotely if tasks can be performed elsewhere and if the manager approves.
• A "remote" role would allow an employee to work from a home office that is in one of the states Crain does business in. We can only employ a remote / "work from home" employee if they reside in one of these states: AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, MD, MA, MI, MN, NV, NY, NC, OH, OR, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, and Washington, DC.
• A "hybrid" role would be a mix of in-office and remote work. There may be a specified schedule for coming into the office or it could be at the discretion of the employee with the manager's approval, subject to change.
• Employees who live within a reasonable commute distance from a Crain office are expected to work on-site 3 days per week.

Many positions will also include work done in "the field." Depending on the role, this may include conducting in-person interviews, attending work-related events, meeting with sources or clients. Specifics will be noted in the job posting but are subject to change as a role evolves. Employees may be exposed to adverse environmental conditions, specifically during field work. Other typical job functions are performed under conditions such as those found in general office work.

Travel to cover news stories/events, meetings with clients, and to our geographically separated offices may be required. It is the nature of many positions to experience non-standard working hours and be on-call when needed for responding to email, meeting with clients, attending work-related events, story development or breaking news. Most employees perform work Monday through Friday, although early-morning, evening or weekend shifts may be required. Work schedule and travel requirements are subject to change as a role and needs evolve over time.

Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of many Crain jobs and are subject to change.

Physical activities will include frequent in-person or virtual interactions. For most positions, it is essential to be able to remain at a desk/computer workstation for prolonged periods, perform computer-related tasks, and create/maintain documents within filing systems. Must have close visual acuity to perform an activity, such as preparing and analyzing reports and information, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal, or extensive reading. The typical physical requirements are light work-exerting up to 25lbs of force occasionally and/or up to 10lbs of force frequently and may include climbing, pushing, standing, hearing, walking, reaching, grasping, kneeling, stooping, and repetitive motion. Some positions will have additional physical requirements, including exerting up to 50lbs of force to move and/or carry equipment, supplies, files, or other materials as the role requires.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential job functions and meet the environmental and physical demands of the role.