Associate Creative Director, North America
About The Position
KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings, is a leading travel search engine that helps people find flights, stays, rental cars, and vacation packages. They are also developing a corporate travel solution called KAYAK for Business. As an employee, you'll be part of a global metasearch brand portfolio including momondo, Cheapflights, and HotelsCombined. Innovation is central to KAYAK's operations, offering employees the chance to make an impact and contribute to building the best travel search engine. This role requires a creative individual with a strong sense of taste, craft, and visual storytelling. The ideal candidate can think big picture while grounding ideas in practical execution, making the brand the hero of every story. Mentorship, organization, and a passion for driving new ideas while respecting legacy are also key attributes. A willingness to embrace bright orange in the creative palette is a plus. This role requires working from the Cambridge, MA office at least 3 days per week.
Requirements
- 8+ years of art direction and/or creative direction experience at a creative agency or fast-paced in-house brand studio, with a proven track record of developing integrated, multi-channel campaigns.
- A portfolio demonstrating integrated campaign experience, alongside strong concepts, craft, and results.
- Fluency in Adobe Creative Suite and Figma; comfort with AI-driven creative capabilities.
- Solid understanding of typography, composition, color, motion and digital design fundamentals.
- Experience partnering with production teams, directors, editors, photographers and content creators.
- Comfortable presenting creative ideas to senior audiences and cross-functional partners.
- Experience with systems management - both from the perspective of building or adapting brand guidelines and organizing assets.
- Experience mentoring or leading other designers, with a collaborative and inclusive approach.
- Proven organization, prioritization and project-management skills.
- A proactive, solutions-oriented mindset and enthusiasm for travel, technology and creative innovation.
Responsibilities
- Concept and direct multi-channel campaigns across OOH, digital, social, film/video, experiential, CRM, and web.
- Produce polished, high-impact design work that reinforces KAYAK’s visual identity and elevates the consumer experience.
- Apply strong storytelling and brand-building instincts to every stage of creative development.
- Partner with the Senior Creative Director to shape creative direction, refine brand expression and develop campaign platforms.
- Ensure visual coherence and craft across all touchpoints, from big ideas to detailed execution.
- Evolve and maintain brand design systems, templates and guidelines.
- Provide day-to-day guidance, inspiration and support to your direct reports, fostering growth and ensuring high standards.
- Collaborate with writers, producers, strategists and marketing partners to bring integrated ideas to life.
- Translate strategic briefs into creative ideas that meet business ambitions and differentiate KAYAK.
- Present concepts and rationale confidently to senior cross-functional partners.
- Manage multiple projects simultaneously, balancing hands-on work with team leadership.
- Use performance data and user insights to refine creative approaches.
- Support experimentation across digital formats, AI tools and new storytelling methods.
Benefits
- Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
- Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
- Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
- Company-wide week off a year
- No meeting Fridays
- Paid parental leave
- Generous paid vacation + time off for your birthday
- Paid volunteer time
- Development Dollars
- Leadership development
- Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
- Travel Discounts
- Employee Resource Groups
- Competitive retirement and health plans
- Free lunch 2 days per week
- Fun quarterly events such as boat trips, arcades, ski trips, Thursday happy hours, and more
- health benefits
- flexible spending account
- retirement benefits
- life insurance
- paid time off (including PTO, paid sick leave, medical leave, bereavement leave, floating holidays and paid holidays)
- parental leave benefits
- annual bonus
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
