Creative Director, Motion and Video

NPR•Washington, DC

4d•$147,000 - $165,000•Hybrid

About The Position

NPR is seeking a Creative Director, Motion and Video to lead the evolution of its brand in a competitive media landscape. This role is focused on building new formats, establishing a visual language, and creating a video team at a scale the organization hasn't operated at before. The Creative Director will report to the SVP of Brand & Communications and collaborate with Product, Audience Insights, Marketing, and Editorial teams to transform NPR into a brand that can effectively compete with new creators and challengers. This is a build and evolution role, not just a caretaker position, aiming to shift NPR's presence across owned platforms, social video, and other channels to ensure it stands out and captures audience attention.

Requirements

8+ years of progressive creative leadership experience specializing in digital media, video production, or motion systems architecture within an in-house team or agency environment.
Exceptional portfolio demonstrating advanced technical mastery, conceptual thinking, creative direction, visual sophistication, and digital product visual identity across multi-platform ecosystems.
Demonstrated experience helping a brand evolve, modernize, or become more differentiated.
Deep technical proficiency in industry-standard video and motion software suites (Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Figma design systems) and understanding of the changing ways audiences discover, consume, and engage with media.
Meaningful experience developing or directing video and motion work.
Demonstrated ability to build relationships, influence cross-functional partners, and navigate complex organizational structures.
Experience managing agencies, freelancers, and creative budgets.
Strong technical storytelling instincts across motion, video, and platform-native digital formats.
Fluency in visual systems, digital motion design, video production workflows, and digital brand expression.
Deep curiosity about media, culture, design technology, motion trends, and changing audience behavior on owned digital platforms.
Strong people leadership, technical team management, coaching, and talent-development skills.
Comfort leading creative/digital visual transformation and systems integration within an established organization.
An ability to respect the equity of a legacy brand without being constrained by its history when building new platform formats.
Excellent collaboration and relationship-building skills across cross-functional teams.
An ability to communicate the strategic, technical, and architectural reasoning behind creative choices.
Comfort navigating ambiguity, organizational complexity, and competing priorities.
Strong decision-making and prioritization skills.
A commitment to accessibility, inclusion, and creating work for a broad and diverse public.
Equivalent hands-on experience, in lieu of a bachelor’s degree.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with a media, technology, cultural, entertainment, consumer, nonprofit, or mission-driven brand undergoing significant transformation.
Experience helping an established or legacy brand evolve for new audiences or platforms.
Experience supporting direct-to-consumer, subscription, membership, or other owned-and-operated digital strategies.
Experience building or expanding an internal video, motion, or multimedia creative capability.
Experience developing enterprise design systems or brand governance frameworks.
Familiarity with audience research, brand measurement, accessibility standards, and emerging creative technologies.
Demonstrated experience directly managing technical creative personnel, such as video editors, motion designers, and digital production leads.

Responsibilities

Drive a more distinctive and cohesive brand in a saturated market by establishing technical brand standards, visual principles, and digital design systems.
Build platform-native video formats and visual frameworks that drive industry-leading differentiation.
Push beyond generic institutional and media-industry conventions to create work with greater personality, clarity, emotion, and cultural relevance.
Translate organizational values, editorial priorities, and public service mission into standardized motion assets, video packages, and platform-native visual frameworks.
Analyze market landscapes and digital competitor trends to ensure NPR’s video and motion visual language remains distinct, modern, and culturally relevant.
Build creative capacity for an owned-and-operated future by defining technical visual frameworks and motion standards for NPR’s digital ecosystem.
Partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Editorial teams to establish a cohesive UI/UX and motion experience across owned platform touchpoints.
Build modular, scalable design systems and template kits that enable teams across the organization to independently publish brand-aligned digital content.
Ensure that creative work supports a deeper direct relationship with audiences rather than treating owned platforms simply as distribution channels.
Help develop the visual and verbal conventions that make the organization’s digital experiences feel distinctive, intentional, and connected.
Identify opportunities to use design, storytelling, video, motion, and other creative tools to increase engagement with owned experiences.
Utilize audience analytics and engagement data to continuously optimize digital assets and direct-to-audience visual experiences.
Build a modern video and motion capability by establishing production standards, camera/lighting guidelines, motion graphic templates, and editing signatures.
Procure, maintain, and manage specialized video studio hardware, camera packages, lighting setups, field audio gear, and editing suites.
Partner with Editorial and other teams to determine where technical brand video and motion graphics complement editorial production.
Develop recognizable approaches to motion, editing, typography, graphics, sound, pacing, and visual storytelling.
Ensure that video is treated as a core creative medium rather than an adaptation of work conceived for print or static digital formats.
Supervise a dedicated, technical video and motion production squad (2 direct reports), managing daily project allocations, post-production workflows, and technical skill development.
Drive creative excellence by establishing operational SLAs, resource management models, and quality-assurance protocols to scale high-volume video publishing efficiently.
Lead the creative development of campaigns, executive communications, fundraising materials, events, presentations, reports, digital experiences, and other strategic initiatives.
Ensure creative work is aligned with organizational priorities, audience needs, accessibility standards, and brand guidelines.
Encourage experimentation while maintaining consistency and quality.
Enforce strict compliance with federal digital accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1, closed captioning, color contrast, screen-reader compatibility) across all motion and video deliverables.