Art Director

Role: Art Director – Creative Strategy

Reports to: Co-founder / Head of Marketing

Direct reports: Digital Designer

Location: Hybrid remote and in-office at our HQ in Costa Mesa, CA

Position/Compensation: Full-time position with base salary, commission and/or bonus and standard company benefits. 

Description

This position is for a highly collaborative, hands-on, visual expert who thrives in a creative and fast-paced environment, and has a track record of leading teams that produce dynamic visuals across a variety of platforms. As part of our in-house team, the Art Director will be responsible for maintaining the integrity of our visual style, while finding new and exciting ways to expand our use of existing design elements. From the conceptual stage to final production and delivery, this individual brings keen strategic thinking, an ability and desire to tell authentic brand stories through media, and a sharp attention to detail with both print and digital design.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate with creative teams to conceptualise and develop visual concepts for digital campaigns, social assets, websites, and multimedia projects.
• Provide creative direction to designers and content creators, ensuring that their work aligns with the project’s vision and objectives.
• Help build brand’s visual identity guidelines, maintaining consistency across all platforms.
• Oversee the creation of user-centric digital interfaces, ensuring that they are visually appealing and provide an intuitive user experience.
• Create original digital artwork, graphics, and visuals using design software.
• Use visual elements to tell compelling stories and convey key messages effectively.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously, including timelines, budgets, and resources.
• Review and approve design work, providing feedback and revisions as necessary to maintain high-quality standards.
• Stay updated on emerging design trends, digital tools, and software to incorporate innovative elements into projects.
• Spend time across lots of digital platforms including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok looking to identify market trends.
• Understand the competitive landscape of our industry.
• Analyize ad creative to make informed decisions on creative strategy.
• Build well-informed briefs for content creators. 
• Design and manage the creative process of all digital creative for website, email campaigns, paid social, organic social, and other digital channels.
• Conceptualize and design from campaign briefs to launches, create and work with marketing, sales and product design teams to execute.
• Ensure all creative assets are optimized for the platforms and devices they are being served on. Platform examples: Website, Email, Instagram, Etc. Device Examples: Mobile, Tablet, Desktop.
• Be the design lead for website UX/UI and be able to interface between ecommerce, marketing and website development teams to create wireframes to final webpage designs. QA the implementation of designs, review and audit the translation from design to production
• Conduct regular website audits to identify UX/UI improvements.
• Direct best practices in maintaining an organized file structure of web content files, imagery, multimedia and copywriting.
• Participate in analytics review to be informed on overall performance and improvement needs for all digital creative and website UI/UX.
• Stay in the know of industry trends with frequent research; seek relevant educational opportunities.
• Provide seasonal digital advertising assets and copy to agency partners.
• Monitor digital advertising performance; devise and optimize strategies with agency partners.

Who You Are

• Communicator: Dynamic, articulate & well-spoken. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including presentation & negotiation skills.
• Organized & Detailed: Ability to focus, prioritize and meet deadlines and help others meet them too.
• Self-Starter: Ability to take something and run with it with little direction needed and thrives in a fast-paced environment.
• Entrepreneurial: Relentless passion for learning and for constant improvement. 
• Strategic: Sets vision and creates long-term goals to achieve it.
• Analytical: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Compelling: Sales personality with a hunger to chase and close new business

Requirements

• 5+ years of working in a similar position
• Desire and ability to work in a results-oriented, fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment..
• Startup mentality: scrappy, creative, and constantly iterating to be best-in-class
• Ability to travel as required for key photoshoots
• Background in action sports, traditional sports, or fashion industry strongly preferred.
• Passion for marketng, brand-building, disrupting an age-old industry, and of course…towels!
• Proficiency in Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Adobe XD for digital design and multimedia projects.
• Usage of project management software like Asana, Slack, Figma to oversee design projects and collaborate with teams.

About Slowtide

Slowtide created a new medium for art, catering to a love of the beach, nature, travel, and comfort. Started by three friends that left their corporate jobs, Slowtide took a category that was otherwise mundane and turned it into a work of art. Blending design and functionality, Slowtide collaborates with brands, artists, and photographers to bring beautiful, unique designs, all while maintaining premium, sustainable quality. Join Slowtide as we help pioneer change through community outreach, education, and donation.

Our workplace is dynamic, supportive and entrepreneurial in spirit, and we pride ourselves on being a collaborative, open-minded and imaginative team. When you work at Slowtide, you’ll have the opportunity to create exceptional, meaningful work and problem-solve with innovative team members by your side.

You’ll love working at Slowtide because:

• Opportunity for growth. Slowtide is a fast-growing startup with lots of opportunities for career development. 
• Flexibility. We encourage proper work/life balance. While we do work hard and put in a lot of hours, we also believe in the value of having a life outside of the workplace. Things like a flexible schedule, flexible time-off policy, and a hybrid remote/in-office schedule. 
• We value people and our team. Company culture is important to us. Things like team building off-sites, volunteering, and happy hours are just a few examples. We probably spend more time with our team than anyone else, so why not have fun together!
• Embracing the entrepreneurial spirit. Being a part of a startup means that there’s never a dull moment and that you’ll likely be involved in a lot of opportunities that may fall outside of your typical job description. Whether it be helping with an event or being a part of cross-functional meetings, there are always new things to learn. 
• Free towels! (plus discounts for friends & family)

Slowtide