Associate Art Director

Scopely

9d•$146,200 - $215,000

About The Position

Scopely is seeking an Associate Art Director to join its art team. Working with the Senior Art Director and creative leadership, this role helps shape a game's visual identity and guide art from early development through delivery. It focuses on creative direction, visual judgment, and alignment across disciplines, translating artistic vision into clear briefs, references, reviews, and actionable feedback. The Associate Art Director also contributes hands-on in at least one art discipline, alternating between high-level direction and detailed critique, paintovers, or blockouts.

Requirements

At least 5 years of professional experience creating art for games, animation, film, or a related visual medium, or equivalent experience, with a record of increasing creative responsibility.
Experience helping define, communicate, and execute an artistic vision from early development through delivery.
Strong hands-on experience in at least one art discipline, particularly character art, environment art, or both.
Ability to communicate visual direction, facilitate constructive reviews, and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, external partners, and distributed contributors.
Working knowledge of production planning, prioritization, and milestone constraints, with sound judgment in balancing creative priorities and delivery needs.
Experience creating or contributing to art bibles, style guides, visual development packages, mood boards, paintovers, callout sheets, or similar direction-setting materials.
Understanding of game art and real-time production pipelines, plus familiarity with relevant 2D and/or 3D content creation tools.
A portfolio demonstrating artistic judgment, visual problem-solving, hands-on craft, and the ability to guide work from concept to completion.

Nice To Haves

Experience in mobile game development or art direction.
Familiarity with the Unity game engine.
Experience supporting live service content development.

Responsibilities

Partner with the Senior Art Director and creative leadership to define the game's visual identity, principles, style guides, briefs, references, and quality standards.
Align art disciplines and partner teams around shared goals, dependencies, handoffs, and decisions; lead visual reviews, critiques, kickoffs, and alignment sessions with clear, constructive feedback.
Guide the creation and refinement of characters, environments, props, lighting, animation, VFX, UI, and other visual components while maintaining cohesion and variety.
Work with design, narrative, engineering, production, and external development partners to carry artistic intent through development.
Contribute hands-on through concept development, paintovers, blockouts, callout sheets, reference packages, prototypes, or other art tasks.
Partner with production and discipline leads to understand milestones, surface risks, and keep creative priorities moving toward delivery.
Support artists, external partners, and vendors with clear direction, feedback, and mentorship.
Improve visual review and direction processes, represent the art team in cross-functional discussions, and communicate priorities to artists, partners, and senior stakeholders.