About the job

At closerlook, the Freelance Creative Director (CD) is charged with guiding the project team and the client to ensure delivery of great creative work, on time and on budget.

The Freelance Creative Director is the face of closerlook’s creative work to the client or prospective client. The Freelance CD is also the creative-team leader of all creative efforts on her accounts. The CD ensures that multiple viable, strategically aligned, conceptually-rooted creative options are considered and presented, and ensures that the project team executes this vision flawlessly. The Freelance Creative Director ensures their team delivers breakthrough work that gets results.

The works to Freelance Creative Director shapes work in advance by gathering and sharing inspiring work, reviewing creative briefs, and assisting in estimating work.

In addition to her work on assigned accounts, the Freelance Creative Director plays a role in closerlook new-business activities, from ideating and building out potential campaigns to presenting in finalist presentations.

Though the Freelance Creative Director is a specialist in either design or writing, the right candidate will have a strong working knowledge of content, visual design, and digital design. Deep experience in digital marketing is a must. Experience as ACD or Creative Director for an agency of record is a plus. Experience with pharmaceutical marketing preferred but not required.

The right candidate has a demonstrable history of using data-driven insight to ideate and execute creative that achieves business results for clients. They can act as a marketer first and a creative second, when necessary. The right candidate derives enormous creative satisfaction from solving complex problems.

The Freelance Creative Director also shares responsibility for building the creative craft capabilities of closerlook’s Chicago-based Creative team.

Responsibilities

Demonstrates the ability to make creative decisions that are sound both creatively and strategically and can explain those decisions thoughtfully to clients and partners across functions.

Understands what kinds of projects demand innovation and which may not

Leads internal and client-facing creative meetings, facilitating both clients and agency personnel through the feedback process.

Develops staff and delegates responsibilities to free himself or herself to assist with multiple client engagements.

Leads the effort to establish, enforce and evolve creative best practices at closerlook.

Contributes to creative concept and treatment development for marketing campaigns, even those outside of her assigned accounts.

Communicates actively with project teams to keep deliverables on track and on schedule.

Supports new business pursuits with creative leadership and execution.

Helps to build strong client relationships based on flawless, on-time and on-budget delivery of creative work that drives results.

Advises clients on business and marketing matters that extend beyond the creative artifact itself.

Stays abreast of trends in both design and technology.

Pending budget availability, attends conferences, lectures, workshops and reports back to teams with relevant learnings and insights.

Participates in development and evolution of the closerlook creative process and closerlook workflow practices.

Works with UX team to establish and develop guidelines and best practices for our digital design and production.

Requirements

At least 10+ years of experience as a marketing-agency creative.

5+ years of experience as a manager.

Experience

leading teams to build strategically aligned, multi-channel creative for current and prospective clients.

Demonstrates careful attention to detail in every aspect of his or her work.

Has demonstrable mastery of English-language style and mechanics.

Demonstrates consistent ability to write and/or design of interactive, motion-media and print projects.

Demonstrates consistent ability to analyze problems, anticipate consequences and eliminate obstacles to successfully complete projects.

Exhibits a high level of creative and problem-solving skills with every project they work on

Has proven ability to present work to internal and external clients and incorporate feedback.

Has experience making interaction-design/information-architecture/user-experience recommendations.

Has a digital portfolio that includes a wide range of interactive work, business-to-business work, some long-form work and a creative concept brought to life across a campaign.

Has a portfolio of agency work that includes strong, campaignable creative concepts

Experience

art directing photography and video shoots, and an understanding of the appropriate role of photography and motion-media in any given marketing tactic and campaign.

Is a team-player with a positive attitude.

Can motivate a team and calm a team, depending on what the team needs in the moment.

Has empathy for the client’s point of view and fosters that empathy across the project team.

Possesses the willingness and ability to adapt the work to accommodate new customer insight and client preferences.