Associate Creative Director

Drexel University • Philadelphia, PA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Division of University Marketing & Communications (UMAC) at Drexel University is responsible for creating proactive, innovative, and comprehensive marketing, communications, and branding strategies. These strategies highlight Drexel’s academic strengths, research, and the value of its experiential education model. Marketing Communications collaborates closely with various university departments to develop strategies that support the University’s branding, recruitment, and retention goals, aiming to meet or exceed enrollment and revenue objectives. The division also defines, protects, and disseminates the Drexel University brand, clearly illustrating its unique value proposition.The Associate Creative Director position is for a highly motivated, collaborative, creative, and intellectually curious individual who can make an immediate positive impact at the University enterprise level. This role is key in motivating, guiding, and mentoring design team members, fostering a positive work environment and collaboration within internal creative teams and the broader UMAC team. The Associate Creative Director will oversee all design team members, including Senior Designers and Designers, with Senior Designers reporting directly to this role. This position is responsible for the entire design output of University Marketing & Communications.Responsibilities include developing training materials and guiding all design staff in print and digital processes, such as pricing, vendor procedures, HTML and CSS development, file storage and maintenance, photography guidelines, and brand guidelines for general and enterprise marketing needs. The Associate Creative Director will take a lead role in day-to-day project management support and delegation for design, partnering with creative team leadership (University Creative Directors, Strategists, and Project Managers) to manage UMAC marketing collateral needs and offer strategic guidance for effective creative team output. The role requires achieving positive outcomes for assigned projects while effectively assigning and overseeing tasks to design team members, leveraging their strengths to ensure projects stay on schedule, within budget, and on brand.The Associate Creative Director will manage and help set design’s brand standards and processes, providing governance for the University community to follow. This role oversees the design team’s visuals and marketing messages, which are crucial to the University’s mission. This includes positioning UMAC brand creative to emphasize the University’s diverse partnerships, immersive learning environment, status as an R1 research institution, and global leadership in experiential education. The ideal candidate is an active listener, problem-solver, and effective communicator of creative concepts and rationale to cross-functional UMAC teams, internal clients, and external partners (e.g., print vendors, agencies) to ensure timely execution of successful design that enhances University recognition and increases enrollment.The Associate Creative Director must have a strong understanding of all messaging mediums within UMAC deliverables, including print, digital, photography, video, emails, web, social, display, advertising, identity, and brand. This also involves providing art direction for hired photography vendors and University web endeavors that require design leadership to achieve enterprise-level results and accurately branded output.

Requirements

• Minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in design, marketing, or business with a concentration in marketing, design or other related specialization, or the equivalent combination of education and work experience
• Minimum of 7+ years of experience within a variety of marketing and/or design roles

Nice To Haves

• 3+ years of experience in a senior design or leadership position supervising creative staff
• Skill with the full suite of Adobe Creative Suite products including InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and Illustrator
• Proven experience in identity work, with the ability to develop creative solutions that align with enterprise level business objectives and brand strategies
• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional and successful creative work, including both digital and traditional media
• Storyboarding skills to communicate clear, concise, and compelling concepts
• The ability to analyze situations, identify solutions, and make sound decisions
• Must be able to effectively communicate ideas, provide constructive feedback, and build strong relationships with team and client
• Proven experience in HTML, CSS
• Proven experience in print production and working with print vendors
• Occasional weekend and after-hours work is required

Responsibilities

• Work alongside creative leadership, such as Creative Directors, Strategists, and Project Managers, to help lead and manage complex UMAC marketing and brand needs and provide strategic guidance throughout the University enterprise
• Mentor and leverage creative team member strengths and UMAC goals to assign and oversee projects, tasks and daily responsibilities to design team members and ensure they stay on schedule, within budget, and on brand
• Take a leading role in evolving University brand and provide strong brand governance to the creative and UMAC team, as well as the University community, through leadership and guidance of UMAC marketing collateral
• Oversee design marketing messages to ensure UMAC brand initiatives position the University as a global leader in experiential education, encourage partnerships, and assert our place as an R1 research institution
• Deliver finalized and leading diverse design projects (i.e. emails, brochures, event materials, photography, web, social, display, advertising, etc.) for undergraduate, transfer, graduate, enrollment and enterprise-level & integrated campaigns, and more
• Mentor, lead, and train creative staff and provide documentation on a variety of technical design executions including the management of print production, html coding for email campaigns, web development and other tasks useful for self-propagational, cross-training within the creative team
• Research and lead on creative trends related to design and marketing campaigns within the field of Higher Education for the purpose of growing current identity systems, enrollment, and brand
• Provide weekly feedback to creative staff and periodic evaluations to direct reports or other designers as requested by HR and UMAC leadership staff
• Provide reports and presentations to leadership and University stakeholders on creative concepts, results, and recommendations to better serve enrollment and University brand goals
• Other duties as assigned

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees