Creative Director

Location: Washington,
Job Category: Magazines
Job ID: 72250
Employment Type: Full time
Salary: per year
Posted: 03.05.2025

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Occupations:

Job Description:

Washingtonian is seeking an imaginative, collaborative, and relentlessly ambitious leader for its creative department. For 60 years, the award-winning city magazine for the Washington area has been a home for groundbreaking feature writing, essential service journalism, and arresting visual storytelling. We’re looking for someone who can help us take the magazine to the next level, leading a high-caliber team of designers, photo editors, and staff photographers.

Responsibilities:

• Overall look and feel of the magazine from a visual perspective
• Management of a small art and photography team
• Brainstorming and designing covers
• Designing features and service packages
• Directing staff and freelance contributors, and managing workflow
• Working with editors on visually-driven story ideas
• Managing a budget
• Helping plan and design ancillary publications
• Helping with the design of online versions of print articles
• Providing input on all aspects of the brand's visual presence

Unofficial responsibilities include: helping create a freewheeling creative environment where staffers are encouraged to cook up ambitious ideas big and small; inspiring a talented team of designers who want to step up their game and editorial folks who want to better collaborate; setting and maintaining high visual standards; and having a lot of fun while doing so.

In addition to first-class design skills, our ideal Creative Director would possess a large rolodex of artists and photographers who can help make our pages even more exciting. The Creative Director reports to the Editor-In-Chief.

Job Requirements:

Qualifications:

• Experienced print art director and designer with strong attention to detail and love and understanding of typography, design, illustration, and photography
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to talk through editorial ideas in a lively, collaborative, and fast-paced environment
• Ability to nurture and develop an internal team of award-winning designers, art directors, and photo editors
• Strong network of industry connections with illustrators, designers, and photographers
• Works closely to implement designs across all brand platforms, including print, web, and video
• Manages budget and allocates spending for freelance, illustrations, and photography
• Proficiency in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop required; experience with K4 a plus
• Web-based graphic design experience a plus
• Must have a minimum of 5 years of magazine experience, a love of typography, a keen eye for complex page design, and be a true team player

Salary: $80,000 to $120,000.

To apply: Please send your cover letter, résumé, and samples (no larger than 10MB) or a link to your online portfolio to designjobs@washingtonian.com with "Creative Director" in the subject line.