Associate Creative Director

Job Summary

In the Division of University Marketing & Communications, Marketing Communications creates proactive, innovative, and comprehensive marketing, communications and branding strategies that highlight Drexel’s academic strengths and research, while emphasizing the value and potential of the experiential education model. Marketing Communications works closely with colleges, schools, academic and administrative staff throughout the University to create comprehensive marketing and communications strategies that serve the University’s overarching branding, recruitment and retention goals to meet or exceed the enrollment and revenue objectives. Marketing Communications defines, protects, and disseminates the Drexel University brand while clearly illustrating its unique value proposition.

Marketing Communications is seeking an Associate Creative Director to join our team. This position is for a highly motivated, collaborative, creative, and intellectually curious individual who can make an immediate positive impact at the University enterprise level. The Associate Creative Director plays a key role in motivating, guiding, and mentoring design team members by creating a positive work environment and fostering collaboration between internal creative teams and the larger UMAC team. The Associate Creative Director will oversee all design team members, which includes Senior Designers and Designers. Senior Designers will report directly to the Associate Creative Director. This role will be responsible for the design output of University Marketing & Communications.

This role will be responsible for developing training materials and guiding all design staff in all print and digital processes, including, but not limited to, pricing, vendor procedures, html and css development, file storage and maintenance, photography guidelines, brand guidelines that influence content for general and enterprise marketing needs, and more.

The Associate Creative Director will provide a lead role in the day-to-day project management support and delegation for design in partnership with creative team leadership, working directly with University Creative Directors, Strategists, and Project Managers to manage UMAC marketing collateral needs and offer strategic guidance, leading to effective creative team output. The Associate Creative Director must achieve expected positive outcomes for their assigned projects while also being effective at assigning and overseeing tasks and responsibilities to design team members, leveraging the strengths of team members to ensure they stay on schedule, within budget, and on brand.

The Associate Creative Director will manage and help set design’s brand standards and processes, providing governance that creates pathways for the University community to follow and adhere to for design and brand development. This role will oversee the design team’s visuals and marketing messages, which are key to the University’s mission. This includes positioning UMAC brand creative to emphasize the University’s work with diverse partnerships, demonstrate its influence as an immersive learning environment, showcase its place at an R1 research institution, and position the University as a global leader in experiential education. This role is designed for an individual who is an active listener, ready to collect feedback and problem solve, and can effectively communicate creative concepts and rationale to cross-functional UMAC teams, internal clients, and external partners like print vendors, agencies, and other entities necessary for timely execution of successful design that grows recognition for the University and increases enrollment.

The Associate Creative Director will have a strong understanding of all the mediums of messaging within UMAC deliverables, including, but not limited to, print, digital, and content related to: photography and video, emails and web, social and display, advertising and marketing campaigns, identity and brand, and much more. This will include art direction for hired photography vendors and for University web endeavors that require design leadership to achieve enterprise level results and accurately branded output.

Essential Functions

• Work alongside creative leadership, such as Creative Directors, Strategists, and Project Managers, to help lead and manage complex UMAC marketing and brand needs and provide strategic guidance throughout the University enterprise
• Mentor and leverage creative team member strengths and UMAC goals to assign and oversee projects, tasks and daily responsibilities to design team members and ensure they stay on schedule, within budget, and on brand 
• Take a leading role in evolving University brand and provide strong brand governance to the creative and UMAC team, as well as the University community, through leadership and guidance of UMAC marketing collateral
• Oversee design marketing messages to ensure UMAC brand initiatives position the University as a global leader in experiential education, encourage partnerships, and assert our place as an R1 research institution
• Deliver finalized and leading diverse design projects (i.e. emails, brochures, event materials, photography, web, social, display, advertising, etc.) for undergraduate, transfer, graduate, enrollment and enterprise-level & integrated campaigns, and more
• Mentor, lead, and train creative staff and provide documentation on a variety of technical design executions including the management of print production, html coding for email campaigns, web development and other tasks useful for self-propagational, cross-training within the creative team
• Research and lead on creative trends related to design and marketing campaigns within the field of Higher Education for the purpose of growing current identity systems, enrollment, and brand
• Provide weekly feedback to creative staff and periodic evaluations to direct reports or other designers as requested by HR and UMAC leadership staff 
• Provide reports and presentations to leadership and University stakeholders on creative concepts, results, and recommendations to better serve enrollment and University brand goals
• Other duties as assigned

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in design, marketing, or business with a concentration in marketing, design or other related specialization, or the equivalent combination of education and work experience (Please review the Equivalency Chart for additional information).
• Minimum of 7+ years of experience within a variety of marketing and/or design roles

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in a senior design or leadership position supervising creative staff
• Skill with the full suite of Adobe Creative Suite products including InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and Illustrator
• Proven experience in identity work, with the ability to develop creative solutions that align with enterprise level business objectives and brand strategies
• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional and successful creative work, including both digital and traditional media
• Storyboarding skills to communicate clear, concise, and compelling concepts
• The ability to analyze situations, identify solutions, and make sound decisions
• Must be able to effectively communicate ideas, provide constructive feedback, and build strong relationships with team and client
• Proven experience in HTML, CSS
• Proven experience in print production and working with print vendors
• Occasional weekend and after-hours work is required

Location

• University City - Philadelphia, PA

Additional Information
This position is classified as Exempt, grade L. Compensation for this grade ranges from $ 62,630.00 to $ 93,950.00 per year. Please note that the offered rate for this position typically aligns with the minimum to midrange of this grade, but it can vary based on the successful candidate’s qualifications and experience, department budget, and an internal equity review.

Applicants are encouraged to explore the Professional Staff salary structure and Compensation Guidelines & Policies for more details on Drexel’s compensation framework. For information about benefits, please review Drexel’s Benefits Brochure.

Special Instructions to the Applicant
Please make sure you upload your CV/resume and cover letter when submitting your application.

A review of applicants will begin once a suitable candidate pool is identified.