Art Director, Branding

ART DIRECTOR

It’s like we know you.

You have superior creative instincts, the gift to make the conceptual

meaningful, and a track record of developing sophisticated brand systems.

You’re smitten with protocols because, well, efficiency.

You’re asking, “What took so long to write?”

You seemed so busy. And we have high aspirations: We want to put you on

the national stage—up here alongside our 50-year legacy of doing

the most recognized work in service to education institutions. (Imagine

having clients that do that much good. And helping families make the most

important decision for the most important people in their world. We do

that.)

We help the nation’s best and most interesting schools, colleges, and

universities make their impact known and their differences meaningful.

Been doing it longer than all the rest—and for more than 200 institutions.

Accumulated a good amount wisdom along the way. Won higher-ed’s top

prize for institutional branding in 2022. Have a lot of other shiny hardware

stashed away from years past, too. But the best work is always ahead.

Oh, another thing about our clients: In general, they don’t like to brag. That’s

where we come in. There’s an art to it.

You also should know we’re not loading up our roster or scaling up to

megacorp status for a big pay day. There’s not much hierarchy here, and

never has been. We’ll be counting on your voice and your point of view. You

won’t suffer the phrase “let’s run it up the chain” or squirm as you wait for an

idea to ladder its way down. We believe our work has always better because

of it. And that our clients have been better served.

What we’ll ask of you:

• Work collaboratively with teams that include a creative director, project

manager, writer, UI specialist, and production specialist, translating our

client’s objectives into creative expressions that are channel-agnostic and

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responsive to our authored brand strategy. In this capacity, you would

be a significant contributor to the development of creative briefs.

• Develop cohesive systems of brand communications as defined in strategy

and creative briefs. You’ll have responsibility for anticipating deployment

across communications channels and for establishing and codifying the

brand standards that our clients rely on.

• Carry out market and design research using client-provided and industry-

related resources and information gathered through participation in

research and discovery. Relatedly, we’ll help you build a well-informed

understanding of the company’s portfolio and the higher ed landscape so

that our design solutions are never derivative. As an agency that stakes it

reputation on providing custom solutions—and one that has chosen to

specialize in education marketing—this is a critical facet of the art

director’s role.

• Cultivate relationships with creative resources such as illustrators,

animators, and photographers, and serve as an important contributor to

the evaluation of new talent.

Here’s what to bring:

• A commitment to work that supports clients whose missions, by their very

nature, improve culture and society.

• A design degree and a minimum of four years of primary art-direction

experience in an environment responsible for brand creative development.

If you’ve never worked for an education client, we’ve got you covered.

• A portfolio that reflects sophisticated and comprehensive solutions that

are responsive to strategy. Ideally, you’ll have a “why” about how you

celebrated language in your design (that’s a really big one for us), and

about how image, pattern, type, and color connected to the brief.

• Proven fluency and comfort developing cross-media design solutions

Aquent