Creative Director

Great Northern • Des Plaines, IL

4d • Onsite

About The Position

The Creative Director is a hands-on creative leader, responsible for leading Industrial Design and Graphic Design while balancing creative strategy, business growth, and day-to-day project execution. This role involves leading, coaching, and developing design teams, reviewing concepts to ensure they are visually compelling and strategically relevant, and leading brainstorming sessions for innovative solutions. The Creative Director will stay current on industry trends, including the use of generative AI, partner with Sales on customer interactions, and provide creative and technical direction throughout the project lifecycle. They will also monitor project progress, track key performance measures, and contribute to estimating and business strategy discussions. This position requires a strong understanding of how design impacts cost and manufacturability, and the ability to adapt to changing priorities.

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.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office.
• Ability to perform the essential functions of the position and maintain regular, punctual attendance consistent with applicable federal, state, and local requirements.

Nice To Haves

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