Associate Director, Creative

Notability•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Join Notability and shape the future of learning. We’re building the next generation of tools designed not just to capture notes, but to fundamentally improve how people learn, think, and collaborate. Our app brings the natural expressiveness of paper into the digital age, empowering millions of students, educators, and professionals worldwide to organize their ideas, deepen their understanding, and achieve their goals. Our mission is simple: we help you learn. As part of our team, you’ll help create experiences driven by empathy, exceptional design, and the belief that great ideas can come from anywhere—including you. Come help us make learning better for everyone. Notability is building its brand function from the ground up, and this role is central to that. As Associate Director, Creative, you'll set the creative direction for how Notability shows up in market and own the external agency relationship that brings the creative to life. You'll work closely with our Brand Lead - who owns creator programs, brand partnerships, and activations, and report directly to the VP of Marketing. This is a role for someone who thinks strategically but stays close to the work - you'll be in the details of every campaign, ad, and landing page, holding the creative bar and keeping the agency accountable to it.

Requirements

6–8 years in brand, creative, or integrated marketing, with meaningful time in a consumer or DTC context
Proven track record managing external creative agencies: directing, reviewing, and holding a high craft bar across deliverables
Experienced brief writer. You can translate a business objective into a creative direction a team can actually execute against
Strong creative instincts with the ability to articulate rationale to non-designers and connect creative decisions to business outcomes
Fluency across brand identity, campaign creative, and social/content, with the judgment to keep them cohesive
Experience collaborating with paid performance teams and keeping up with evolving creative requirements across paid platforms
Experience in cross-functional leadership with design teams, including bringing a shared visual identity to life alongside a peer design leader
Comfortable operating without a fully established playbook. This function is still being built

Responsibilities

Define and evolve Notability's creative direction: visual identity, tone, and expression across marketing channels.
Translate business and campaign goals into clear creative concepts, and ensure consistency across every brand-facing touchpoint.
Ensure the brand identity system scales across future channels, campaigns, and media.
Partner closely with the Director of Design to keep brand, marketing, and product expression unified, jointly shaping the visual language they share.
Own the day-to-day relationship with our external creative agency.
Write creative briefs that translate campaign goals and brand strategy into clear, actionable direction for the agency.
Direct the work, review and approve creative output, and manage priorities and sequencing.
Lead creative development for ads, landing pages, product launches, and brand campaigns, from concept through final delivery.
Own the feedback loop between creative output and performance data, across both internal teams and the external agency.
Push new creative formats, motion, and technologies as a direction-setter for how Notability communicates and engages.
Own and evolve Notability's brand system (including visual identity, voice, and creative principles) across all marketing and communication channels.
Define the templates and systems that make brand output scalable and consistent, including for channels owned by other team members.

Benefits

Competitive compensation that includes base salary, bonuses and profit sharing
Equity Awards in the form of Stock Options
Comprehensive healthcare fully covered for you and your family including medical, dental, and vision
Flexible work and vacation schedules
401k with matching contributions
Matching gifts to nonprofits
Lunch Stipend (When Working from HQ)
Public transit stipend
Home workstation reimbursement
ISP stipend
Monthly phone bill stipend