Design Director

Our client is seeking a hands-on Design Director to lead a growing multidisciplinary design team at a 25-year-old experiential marketing agency. With roots in printing, the agency has grown into a full-service partner for live events, experiential activations, and influencer programs, producing most of its work in-house across multiple facilities in New York and New Jersey. The team works with major health and beauty, athletic, luxury, travel, and real estate brands on everything from hair care events and influencer trips to multi-day conferences with fully built environments. The work is execution focused: designers help produce the events and are on site to see them come to life.

This individual will oversee a team, guiding the development of brand experiences, environmental graphics, and physical spaces while managing the department's workflow, resources, and design quality. The ideal candidate comes from experiential design, marketing, or production, brings strong 2D and 3D skills, understands fabrication and materials, and enjoys taking a concept from render to reality.

You Will:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a multidisciplinary team of graphic and spatial designers, including an ACD and senior 2D and 3D design leads.
• Build out and grow the design department as the agency's business expands.
• Manage the design department's daily workflow, including brief intake, assignments, resources, milestones, and deadlines.
• Allocate designers to projects and keep the team on track across multiple concurrent events and activations.
• Review project scopes, client objectives, budgets, and deliverables to establish clear design direction and realistic timelines.
• Monitor team capacity and identify needs for freelance support, hiring, reprioritization, or schedule adjustments.
• Work hands-on with designers to explore concepts, refine layouts, review models and renderings, and elevate design solutions.
• Maintain high standards across typography, composition, branding, environmental graphics, spatial planning, materials, and presentation.
• Bridge the account and creative teams, partnering with account and production to keep design decisions aligned with client goals, scope, budget, and execution requirements.
• Lead design-focused client presentations, explain design rationale, and translate feedback into actionable direction.
• Collaborate with in-house print production, fabrication, build managers, architects, and installation teams to ensure designs can be successfully produced.
• Review floor plans, technical drawings, material samples, print proofs, and production documentation as appropriate.
• Identify fabrication and installation challenges early and develop solutions that preserve design quality from render to reality.
• Participate in site visits, fabrication reviews, installations, and live events as needed to maintain design oversight through completion.
• Support new business presentations and maintain the agency's visual identity across credentials, case studies, website content, and other materials.
• Lead hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, and professional development for the design team.

You Have:

• 8+ years of professional design experience, including meaningful experience in experiential, environmental, event, retail, hospitality, or spatial design.
• A background in experiential design, experiential marketing, or production.
• Strong 2D and 3D design skills.
• 3+ years of experience leading and managing designers in a multidisciplinary creative environment.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating experiential and spatial design, including how brand identity and graphic systems translate into physical environments.
• Strong design judgment and the ability to provide clear, specific feedback across graphic and spatial design.
• Advanced proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and relevant 3D modeling or rendering platforms such as SketchUp, Rhino, Enscape, V-Ray, or comparable tools.
• Industry experience working directly with fabricators, plus strong knowledge of physical production, including fabrication methods, materials, finishes, print production, installation, costs, and lead times.
• Ability to read and critically review floor plans, elevations, renderings, technical drawings, and shop drawings.
• Experience balancing creative ambition with budgets, project scope, schedules, and production requirements.
• Confidence moving between high-level design direction and detailed, hands-on problem-solving.
• Excellent presentation and communication skills, including the ability to explain design decisions to clients and internal partners.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to lead multiple projects with competing deadlines.
• A collaborative, proactive approach with the ability to take ownership and keep work moving.
• Willingness to travel occasionally and support extended hours and onsite work during major installations and live events.

Logistics:

• Start Date/Duration: Starting ASAP, direct hire
• Hours/Week: Full-Time
• Onsite/Offsite: Hybrid in New York City, 3 days in-office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday
• Travel: Occasional travel and onsite support for installations and live events
• Interview Process: First round via Zoom, second round in person
• Salary: $130K-$140K+ DOE