Senior Art Director – Brand

Job Description

CarMax, the way your career should be!

About this job

As the Senior Art Director – Brand, you will drive the creative vision and execution of compelling creative that elevates our brand and engages audiences. This role blends strategy, branding, and design expertise to produce high-quality assets across brand channels and stores. This role is ideal for a creative thinker who thrives in a fast-paced environment, can pivot quickly, and brings a strong blend of conceptual and strategic creative skills. Whether designing brand assets, creating brand and/or installation guidelines, or refining brand messaging, you will play a key role in shaping engaging brand assets that resonate with audiences across multiple platforms. Reporting to the Associate Creative Director on the Brand team, you will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, ensuring that creative executions align with strategic objectives and brand guidelines.

What you will do – Essential Responsibilities

• Proactively contributes ideas to the practice of Brand Communications (brainstorms, inspiration gathering, identifying appropriate trends, channel-specific approaches, and ways to bring our brand to life).
• Recognizes opportunities to evolve CarMax's brand. Can articulate rationale to brand stakeholders.
• Contributes to the development and maintenance of style guides and/or installation guides for respective channels and stores.
• Leads brainstorming sessions to come up with innovative and original ideas for projects. Understands project goals and how deliverables fit within the broader marketing strategy.
• Leads with innovative thinking and art direction skills in visual design, branding, concept development, motion graphics, and design systems/layouts. Able to confidently navigate how channel needs, performance indicators, and business goals impact the work.
• Understanding of how GenAI impacts planning for campaigns and the ability to identify opportunities. Build brand-appropriate templates that meet creative briefs for the generation of assets and work with teams to facilitate delivery. Proactively invest time in learning AI.
• Advanced proficiency in creative tools. A clear understanding of opportunities and restrictions of the tech and asset types and AI/brand best practices. Researches how tools can be used to enhance the creative development and testing process. Collaborates with the manager to develop a strategy for optimizing creative based on insights gained.
• Captures and documents content/asset recommendations from legal and elsewhere and rationale in an easily shareable/editable format. Follows established processes, tools, and file saving/sharing.
• Contributes to brainstorms, proactively sources inspiration from a wide range of digital sources, effectively using found images, mocked-up imagery, and video to shape and support creative concepts. Refines and customizes ideas, integrating inspiration into original work that fits brand guidelines and platform needs.
• Promotes projects and initiatives effectively to various levels of the organization, articulating POV by showing creative thought process and rationale. Communicates clearly and effectively, tailoring the message to the audience.
• Builds and maintains strategic relationships across teams, actively engaging with others to align on objectives and contribute to team goals.
• Successfully motivates and leads peers and business partners to embrace high level creative that connects team goals with larger department goals.
• Seeks creative feedback or ideas from partners/team; recognizes when other ideas will better serve the project/user.
• Thinks critically to balance creativity and execution, making informed decisions independently while managing tight timelines and navigating ambiguity. Able to address issues independently.
• Leads multiple projects independently, effectively managing timelines, deliverables, and team expectations with minimal oversight.
• Critically evaluates and questions high-level strategic decisions to suggest improvements or enhance the creative direction
• Proactively embraces change, adjusting quickly to evolving requirements and managing transitions with minimal disruption.

Qualifications and Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Visual Arts, Digital Media, Advertising, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience in design and art direction.
• 5+ years of experience in art direction, branding or a related creative role.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating expertise in art direction, identity, brand storytelling, and creative leadership.
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, InDesign, Figma is a plus.
• Experience designing and creating layouts for a variety of print and digital channels.
• Experience designing and creating brand systems.
• Experience designing and creating motion graphics.
• Experience creating brand/installation guidelines and working with production vendors.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate and present concepts effectively to diverse audiences.
• Keen attention to detail and a passion for delivering high-quality, customer-centric work.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, managing multiple projects and deadlines simultaneously.
• A passion for creative problem-solving and pushing creative boundaries.

The annual salary for this position is:

$76,200.00 - $114,300.00

May be eligible for bonus and equity.

Benefits

• Except as otherwise required by state law, CarMax Associates are entitled to the following paid sick, vacation, and holiday time.

Associates that are considered full-time hourly or commission/incentive eligible:

• To earn up to 48 hours of sick time per year accrued on a per pay period basis and between 80 hours and 200 hours per year of vacation time after a 90 day waiting period depending on years of continuous service with the Company.

• For 8 hours of pay for each of a total of 6 paid scheduled holidays per year plus 1 floating holiday. If such an Associate does work on a scheduled holiday due to business need, they are eligible for Holiday Premium Pay.

• Associates considered full-time salaried are entitled to paid time away with no specified limit as needed for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc. subject to manager approval.

• For more details about benefits, please visit our CarMax Benefits website.

• Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.

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