Director, Creative Design & Strategy

This position has been filled - Job#: 453377976

Job Summary

This role serves as the lead designer and developer for the club’s overall creative brand initiatives as well as the guardian of the club’s brand standards for marks and logos.

The primary functions of this role include providing overall strategic plans and initiatives; ensuring delivery of high-quality programming, products and services consistent with sponsorship contracts and agreements; help manage financial and budgetary compliance; and develop creative ideas and solutions to generate revenue growth for existing clients (as well as cross selling initiatives).

This position will partner closely with cross-functional teams in the organization to advance the team's long term strategic approaches to content creation and delivery. Most importantly, this role is responsible for setting the creative vision and maintaining high creative standards. This role will oversee the Creatives Services team comprised of Designers and Photographers, who all serve as creative support functions to internal departments and external partners (MLB) through the design of forward-thinking creative solutions that maintain the Astros brand across multiple mediums. 
 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.The Creative Director must be a strong multi-faceted leader who maintains strong communication skills and manages to tight deadlines. Skills that this role must have are the ability to foster a creative environment, delegate when needed, strong management skills, strategic thinking, attention to detail and strong worth ethic. A successful person in this role must be able to be directly responsible for projects from concept to completion and be a strong peer leader and developer of talent. In additional, the individual will be required to do the following:
• Provide creative leadership and standards for the entire internal organization.
• Maintain consistency of identity across all organizational materials and ensure proper use of trademarks
• Develop a creative culture and provide career pathing and development for the Creative Services team
• Responsible for the development of ideas that are innovative and drive the brand forward
• Develop the annual strategic initiatives for the Creative Services department, as a component and input to the overall departmental plan
• Serve as the creative lead on special design projects
• Organize and direct organizational photoshoots

Responsible for the overall design and production of marketing materials (such as, but not limited to): 
Annual marketing campaigns 
In-Stadium Graphics 
Digital advertising 
Content generation 
Special Projects 
Community and Foundation Projects 
Ticketing and Sponsorship Initiatives 
Annual Reports 
Stadium Design Initiatives 



Education and/or Experience:

Bachelor’s in the visual arts or related field.
8+ years’ experience in design, art direction or creative production. Sports or entertainment experience preferred.
Strong background and proficiency knowledge in Adobe Creative Suite with a focus in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects
Knowledge of digital and mobile experiences and how to leverage social media to engage consumers
Exceptional understanding of the print process and web production
Strong design skills and ability to provide quick creative visual solutions
Ability to work collaboratively within a design team environment and analyze creative feedback
Excellent oral and written communication skills – can interact well with all levels internally and externally.
Detailed oriented, organized and able to multi-task.
Presentation skills: Effective in a variety of formal presentation settings; effective in selling creative rationale; elicits respect and can manage meeting pace
Strong peer and direct leadership skills – ability to develop and manage talent.
Design portfolio required for consideration