Art Director (12-month contract) - Japan

Canva

3d • Remote

About The Position

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design. Our headquarters is in sunny Sydney, Australia, but our team spans the globe. While we support flexible, remote-friendly ways of working, for this role we’re focusing on Tokyo, Japan. So we can best support our teams and keep collaboration flowing.

This role is focused on our template Library — the design content marketplace where millions of users start their design journey — rather than Brand or external-facing creative work.

Canva's on a mission to democratise design, and localisation is a big part of that. It's not enough to translate content from English — we want every market to have templates that reflect their own design aesthetics and trends. Working closely with copywriters, illustrators, market growth and localisation specialists, you'll oversee the end-to-end rollout of the Japan content library. This role goes beyond designing templates yourself. You'll also shape what our external Creators make — writing clear Creator briefs, managing quality of their template submissions, and using AI to create templates at scale for the Japan market. You'll partner with the Design Lead to help manage our freelancer designers, keeping work aligned, on-brief and on-time.

Requirements

• Experience as a Graphic, Brand or Visual Designer across digital and print marketing.
• A genuine love for design trends and styles specific to Japan.
• A portfolio that shows your passion for clean, elegant, beautiful design.
• Strong craft in hand illustration, typography, colour, conceptual graphic design and layout.
• A sharp eye for visual, cultural and pop culture trends.
• A strong stylistic point of view, grounded in design fundamentals.
• You design with the end user in mind, and deliver great work on deadline and to brief.
• You've given design feedback before — and you know how to make it clear, kind and useful.
• You're comfortable using AI tools in your design workflow, and curious about pushing them further.
• You can write a tight creative brief that sets other designers up for success.
• You've helped coordinate or guide a small group of designers before (or you're excited to step into that).

Nice To Haves

• Experience using Canva is a plus, helping you get up to speed quickly from day one.

Responsibilities

• Create a range of fresh, varied and beautiful designs for our Japan community.
• Develop unique concepts for templates across themes and topics that resonate in Japan.
• Collaborate with asset creators to develop supporting design elements — illustrations and design elements — that make templates shine.
• Suggest new design styles and creative directions that fit what local users want.
• Focus on quality management for Creator templates, partnering with the Creator Template Review Team to lift overall design quality and keep everything on-brand.
• Use AI tools to create templates at scale for the Japan market, without compromising craft or cultural relevance.
• Write Creator briefs that give clear direction, context and inspiration, so Creators can do their best work.
• Partner with the Design Lead to manage freelancer designers — keeping work on track, on-brief and shipping on deadline.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed