Senior Production Designer

About Athena

Athena is a creative place for leaders, risk-takers, and boundary-pushers. We partner with organizations looking to transform their presence, reputation, and performance. For more than a decade, we've delivered business insights, marketing strategies, and brand activations for leading organizations across industries ranging from telecommunications to major league sports.


Our people make Athena, Athena. As a three-time Philadelphia Inquirer Top Workplace, we pride ourselves on fostering an environment where passion meets excellence. We are solutions-oriented, collaborative, and not afraid to roll up our sleeves to make work that works-while sharing a few laughs along the way.


About the Position

We're looking for a Senior Production Designer who thrives in the final stages of creative execution. This role is responsible for ensuring that every asset leaving Athena is technically sound, visually flawless, and optimized for its intended channel, whether that's print, digital, social, web, out-of-home, or experiential.[KO1]


This is a highly detail-oriented role for someone who understands that great creative doesn't end with design. It ends with precision execution. You'll partner closely with creative directors, designers, creative project managers, account teams, and external production partners to prepare, adapt, package, and deliver assets across a wide range of formats and platforms.

The ideal candidate combines strong design instincts with deep production expertise. They understand layout, composition, typography, visual hierarchy, and brand systems, and can confidently adapt creative across formats without sacrificing the integrity of the original idea. They know how to preflight files, build production-ready artwork, troubleshoot issues before they become problems, and maintain quality and consistency across every deliverable. They can take a single master asset and thoughtfully reimagine it across dozens of sizes, formats, and aspect ratios while preserving clarity, balance, and impact.

Requirements

What you'll be responsible for:

• Preparing, organizing, and delivering production-ready assets across print, digital, social, web, out-of-home, environmental, experiential, and emerging channels.
• Preflighting files to ensure technical accuracy, quality, accessibility compliance, and adherence to production specifications before release.
• Building final artwork and production files that meet vendor, printer, platform, and channel requirements.
• Adapting campaign creative, brand assets, and marketing materials across multiple formats, dimensions, and aspect ratios while maintaining visual hierarchy, design integrity, and brand consistency.
• Applying strong design fundamentals, including layout, spacing, typography, composition, and information hierarchy, to ensure every adaptation feels intentional and polished.
• Managing version control, file organization, naming conventions, and packaging of final deliverables.
• Partnering with designers, art directors, and creative teams to refine layouts, solve production challenges, and preserve the original creative vision through execution.
• Collaborating with printers, fabricators, developers, media partners, and other vendors to ensure successful production and deployment.
• Reviewing proofs for color accuracy, typography, image quality, accessibility considerations, and technical specifications before final approval.
• Preparing and optimizing assets for a wide range of outputs, including large-format graphics, print collateral, social media, digital advertising, websites, presentations, email, video, and environmental graphics.
• Troubleshooting production issues, identifying risks, and proactively resolving technical challenges before assets are released.
• Staying current on evolving production standards, platform specifications, accessibility requirements, and industry best practices.
• Serving as the agency's final quality-control checkpoint, ensuring every deliverable meets the highest standards of craft, accuracy, and execution.

The Skills and Experience You Should Have

• 5+ years of production design experience in an agency, in-house creative team, studio, publisher, or similarly fast-paced environment.
• Expert-level proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud, including InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat.
• Experience using data merge workflows to efficiently personalize, version, and produce templated creative assets at scale.
• Strong design fundamentals, including typography, layout, composition, color, spacing, and visual hierarchy.
• Deep understanding of print production processes, including color management, file setup, bleed, trim, die lines, spot colors, proofing, and press-ready file preparation.
• Strong knowledge of digital production standards, including asset optimization, file formats, image compression, responsive layouts, and platform-specific requirements.
• Experience preparing files for a wide variety of outputs, including print, digital advertising, social media, websites, presentations, email, large-format, and environmental graphics.
• Exceptional ability to resize, adapt, and version creative assets across multiple dimensions, aspect ratios, and channels while maintaining design quality and visual impact.
• Ability to make informed design decisions when adapting layouts for varying formats, content requirements, and user experiences.
• Strong understanding of typography, layout systems, image resolution, color spaces, and production best practices.
• Working knowledge of accessibility standards and inclusive design principles, including color contrast, typography, readability, and accessible digital asset preparation.
• Experience working within established brand systems and applying brand guidelines consistently across diverse deliverables.
• Experience working directly with vendors, printers, developers, and production partners.
• Ability to identify technical issues quickly, troubleshoot effectively, and develop practical solutions.
• A refined eye for detail and craft, with the ability to identify subtle inconsistencies in layout, alignment, spacing, imagery, typography, and production quality.
• Understanding of how creative ideas translate across print, digital, social, environmental, experiential, and emerging media.
• Ability to balance creative excellence with technical precision and production requirements.
• Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines simultaneously.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills across creative, strategy, account, and project management teams.

It's a Plus If You Have

• Experience producing assets for integrated marketing campaigns across digital, social, print, experiential, environmental, and emerging channels.
• Experience with motion graphics, video production workflows, digital asset management systems, or content production pipelines.
• Familiarity with Figma and production workflows for web, digital, and collaborative design environments.
• Experience preparing files for large-scale events, activations, signage, wayfinding, and branded environments.
• Proficiency with AI-powered creative and production tools, combined with a passion for exploring emerging technologies and evolving workflows that enhance efficiency, automate production, and transform how creative work is developed and delivered at scale.
• Experience in sports, entertainment, telecommunications, automotive, healthcare, or other highly visible consumer-facing industries.
• Energy, a sense of humor, and an open and curious mind.

Benefits
• Medical/Dental benefits including a 1K Health Reimbursement Account
• Matching 401K
• Generous PTO policy
• Substantial Parental Leave Policy
• Hybrid Work Environment

Equal Opportunity Employer

Athena is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by law.