Creative Director

Great Northern • Des Plaines, IL

3d • Onsite

About The Position

Privately held, Great Northern Instore, a division of Great Northern Corporation, is a Multi-Million Dollar, Designer, Engineering, and Manufacturer of Custom Permanent Point Purchase Displays and Retail Fixtures. Great Northern is committed to making a difference in the lives of our team members, customers, and the communities in which we live and work. Many of our team members were referred to by their friends and families who are already a part of the Great Northern team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in industrial design or a related field, or significant equivalent experience in retail display, fixture, or in-store environment design.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience leading a design or creative team in a manager or director role.
• Strong working knowledge of product development, including CAD, sketching, rendering, rapid prototyping, materials, and manufacturing processes for displays, fixtures, or similar physical products.
• Recent hands-on technical experience and the ability to support design project execution during periods of high workload.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams, set direction, provide constructive feedback, manage competing priorities, and develop talent.
• Strong understanding of how design decisions affect cost, manufacturability, timing, customer value, and business results.
• Excellent verbal, written, presentation, organizational, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities and work effectively with different disciplines, personalities, and organizational levels.
• Ability to perform the essential functions of the position and maintain regular, punctual attendance consistent with applicable federal, state, and local requirements.
• Ability to maintain regular, punctual attendance consistent with the ADA, FMLA and other federal, state and local standards

Nice To Haves

• Experience in permanent POP displays, retail fixtures, store environments, shopper marketing, or a closely related industry strongly preferred.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office; familiarity with generative AI and emerging design technologies preferred.

Responsibilities

• Leads, coaches, and develops the Industrial Design and Graphic Design teams; establishes expectations for design quality, collaboration, accountability, and performance.
• Reviews concepts and presentations to ensure solutions are visually compelling, strategically relevant, technically sound, manufacturable, and appropriate for the customer
• Leads brainstorming and concept-development activities to create differentiated solutions that address customer, brand, shopper, budget, and retail needs.
• Stays current on retail, design, material, manufacturing, and technology trends, including practical uses of generative AI for design exploration.
• Partners with Sales on customer meetings, project kickoffs, prototype reviews, presentations, and new business opportunities; helps qualify where creative resources should be invested.
• Provides creative and technical direction from initial brief and ideation through client presentation, engineering, prototyping, and production.
• Reviews the WebCenter schedule and active workloads to monitor deadlines, revisions, project progress, and resource capacity.
• Tracks key measures such as project throughput, development timing, win rates, freelance spending, and first-run orders; recommends improvements to staffing, tools, capabilities, and processes.
• Participates in preliminary estimating and design-to-cost discussions, balancing creativity with material, manufacturing, timing, shipping, installation, and budget considerations.
• Reviews new projects, determines the appropriate development path and deliverables, assigns work, balances internal and freelance resources, work capacity, and adjusts priorities as needs change.
• Provides hands-on project support when workload, timing, or project complexity requires it, using CAD, sketching, rendering, concept development, or other relevant design tools.
• Collaborates in “ballpark” estimating meetings to develop budgetary pricing ahead of engineering and formal estimating.
• Contributes creative insight to business strategy, growth priorities, resource planning, and operational decisions.

Benefits

• Competitive 401K match and a historically generous profit-sharing retirement savings contribution
• Paid Time Off and IL Paid Leave after 30 days of employment
• 9 Paid Holidays
• Medical PPO, Health Savings Account, Dental, and Vision insurance
• Wellness Program
• Life Insurance, Short Term and Long-Term Disability available
• Health Fitness, Safety Prescription Glasses, and Safety Shoes Reimbursement annually
• Tuition Reimbursement available after 1 year of service
• Opportunities to advance your career and compensation level
• Annual increases

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager