Brand Design Lead/Art Director (Greater Denver Area, CO or Remote)
We are thrilled to announce Handshake’s $200M Series F funding round. At Handshake, we believe that a career opportunity shouldn’t be determined by who you know or what you’ve done. It’s about what you can - and will - do. Your future, not your past. Our Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel our next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. Handshake’s community includes 20 million students and young alumni around the world from 1,400 educational institutions, including four-year colleges, community colleges, boot camps, and 290+ minority-serving institutions. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, nonprofits, and even sports teams like the LA Dodgers. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, New York, and London and teammates working globally.
Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.
If you are not sure that you’re 100% qualified, but up for the challenge – we want you to apply. We believe skills are transferable and passion for our mission goes a long way.
The Art Director will lead design for all brand, content, and integrated marketing for our student audience. Collaborating closely with leads on the Student Marketing team, they will create impactful, engaging content for our owned channels. We’re looking for an Art Director who can mentor and coach other designers and foster a collaborative and inclusive culture on the brand design team.
Your Role:
- As an Art Director on the Brand Design team, you will develop creative concepts and successfully execute high-quality brand design for our owned channels against creative briefs and informed by marketing insights.
- Operate autonomously as a designer while being comfortable guiding cross-functional teams, freelancers, agencies, and production partners.
- Work cross-functionally with the marketing team to execute high-impact brand marketing content
- Expand our visual design systems to create a holistic approach to typography, color, patterns, layouts, and imagery, and consistently contribute to our design foundations.
- You will be an advocate for brand consistency across every touchpoint for students, and up-level the entire team through a commitment to growth and mentorship.
- You have 6+ years of experience and an outstanding brand design portfolio with examples of having led art direction for integrated brand and marketing projects from business need to concepts to execution.
- You have led brand design teams in the day-to-day delivery of marketing creative with best-in-class quality and consistency.
- You have an impeccable eye for detail and a keen understanding of typography, color, and composition.
- You have experience building and managing strong relationships with marketers and cross-functional teams, and have a collaborative no ego, approach to working with others.
- You have strong communication and presentation skills. You can articulate concepts and ideas clearly, can engage in healthy critique, can accept directional feedback, and articulate the rationale behind your design decisions. You are organized and can collaborate with other creative partners.
- You have worked on a breadth of design projects, from campaigns to the web to social media, video, and everything in between.
- You are an expert in Adobe Creative Suite and Figma, with experience in art direction for photography and illustration.
- You have a working knowledge of motion graphics, interaction, and environmental design.
- Additional skills not required but a plus to have: video editing; illustration; and photography.
$140,000 - $160,000
- Stock: Ownership in a fast-growing company.
- Hub-Based Remote Work: Handshakers can enjoy the flexibility of remote work whilst ensuring in-person collaboration, and team experiences remain possible.
- Financial Management with Origin: We provide you with a professional financial planner via Origin to gain a better understanding of making the most of your compensation, equity, benefits, and perks.
- Paid Parental Leave: All new parents at Handshake (both birth and non-birth giving) are encouraged to take time to focus on their growing family and are eligible for paid family leave. US Handshakers are provided up to 16 weeks of paid family leave for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents.
- Mental Health Assistance: We are here to support you in every step of your mental health journey; our benefits include Employee Assistance Programs that offer counseling support for those eligible.
- Home Office Stipend: Handshake offers $500/£360 for you to spend on setting up a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
- Learning: Learning & Development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
- Team Bonding: Regularly scheduled virtual company-wide and team events! Once it’s safe, we’ll provide meaningful connection points throughout the year for Handshakers to build community and meet teammates in person.
- Great team: Working with fun, hardworking, nice people who are committed to making a difference!
- 401k: We care about your ability to save for your future. Launching Spring 2022, Handshake will offer a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
- Healthcare: World-class medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage.
- 2022 Time Off: All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. We also offer 8 standardized holidays, 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off, and 2 one-week periods of Collective Time Off (7/4-7/8/2022) and (12/26-12/30/2022).
- Pension: Handshake matches 3% of your salary towards your pension scheme.
- Healthcare: Handshake's comprehensive healthcare policy covers 100% of employee premiums & 100% of dependent premiums for medical, dental, and vision benefits.
- 2022 Time Off: Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
