Creative Director

Bullish•New York, NY

5d•$228,000 - $255,000•Onsite

About The Position

CoinDesk is the most trusted media, events, indices and data company for the global crypto economy. Since 2013, CoinDesk Media has led the story of the future of money and investing, illuminating the transformation in society and culture that comes with it. Our award-winning team of journalists delivers news and unparalleled insights that bring transparency, comprehension and context. CoinDesk Events gathers the global crypto, blockchain and Web3 communities at annual events such as Consensus, the world’s largest and longest-running crypto festival. CoinDesk Indices offers expertise in digital asset indices, data and research to educate and empower investors. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. We are seeking a Creative Director to lead the next chapter of brand expression and creative execution. This is a hands-on, high-impact role that pairs creative vision with disciplined craft across an ecosystem of brands spanning crypto-finance and media. You will set an ambitious creative bar, bring bold ideas to life, and help shape how our brands evolve across audiences, products, content, and technology. This role is based in NYC and will be required to work onsite at our office a minimum of 4 days per week.

Requirements

10+ years leading brand and digital creative at a strong studio, agency or in-house team, with a portfolio that sets a high bar for visual ambition.
Proven ability to build and evolve brand systems that scale across audiences, products, and touchpoints.
Track record of making ambitious work happen without a big team behind you.
Editorial taste and a producer mindset. Strong judgment around typography, pacing, imagery, sequence, and curation, paired with the ability to own the process, solve problems, manage stakeholders and deliver.
Mastery of Figma and Adobe Creative Suite, with strong digital design fluency and the production discipline and file etiquette you would want the team to adopt.
Outstanding presentation, visual communication, and storytelling skills.
A clear point of view on craft and where design is going, and a collaborative approach that prioritizes the end-viewer/user experience.
Strong intuition for motion language, timing, and animation principles, and the ability to direct motion through storyboards, key art and asset playbooks. Hands-on experience with After Effects, Rive, Lottie or similar is a significant advantage.
Ability to direct and elevate other designers, giving smart critique, raising the level of the work and steering teams toward strong solutions.
Comfort operating across a global, cross-functional organization, including teams in the U.S., Cayman, London, and Hong Kong.

Nice To Haves

Crypto, financial services, or media brands.
Leading or contributing to brand refreshes and multi-brand portfolios.
Editorial or publishing-tier design background.
3D, WebGL, Framer, Midjourney, and generative or prompt-based tooling.
Proficiency with project management tools.

Responsibilities

Lead the creative expression for our brands across marketing, events, business, editorial, web, and media surfaces. Set an ambitious bar for craft and originality.
Steward and evolve the brand systems as they mature, deepening visual language, motion, and imagery across touchpoints, supporting new audiences and products, and rewiring the brands for the AI era.
Develop opportunities for brand motion by establishing how brand moments move, transition, and show up across digital, social, product, and events.
Direct and contribute to creative output at the project and program level by guiding designers and marketing partners through roadmapping, briefing, ideation, critique, and delivery.
Champion a modern, exploratory creative practice, actively experimenting with AI workflows, emerging tools, mediums and design technologies and translating that exploration into useful creative applications.
Keep the brand systems moving and useful by developing the assets, extensions, templates, and guides teams need to execute at a high level, including brand portals, partner-facing guides, LLM- and connector-ready brand inputs, and corporate templates.
Partner cross-functionally with Marketing, Media, Product, Events, Business, and executive leadership to ensure creative work solves the right problems with aesthetic ambition.
Deliver hands-on, 360° creative across the ecosystem, spanning digital and product marketing, campaigns, sales and business collateral, event production, research reports, social, multimedia, product lines and launches.
Support group-level creative needs including office branding, internal communications, swag and other company-wide creative services.
Inspire and elevate the team, modeling rigorous refinement, curiosity, prioritization, and accountable execution while helping build a culture where craft is the standard.