Design Director

This is a Full Time Job

Los Angeles (Hybrid)

Position Overview

The Design Director is the senior-most leader for Saylor’s design team, responsible for setting and upholding our creative standard across all design and motionwork. This role balances creative excellence, hands-on design leadership, people management, and operational partnership so design at Saylor is consistently high-quality, scalable, and aligned with the agency’s creative ambition.

This is a hands-on design leadership role. While the Design Director is responsible for setting standards, mentoring the team, and partnering cross-functionally, they are also expected to actively design, concept, and execute work on high-impact projects.

The Design Director partners closely with Creative Directors, Strategy, Production, Editorial, and Account leadership, and manages the design team along with the Design Resource Manager, who oversees design staffing allocation and resourcing.

Responsibilities:

Creative & Craft Leadership
• Set, maintain, and evolve the visual design standard across all Saylor client work, including brand, social, paid media, experiential, and OOH.
• Ensure all design work is conceptually strong, on-brand, and aligned with creative direction and Saylor’s creative standards.
• Provide clear, actionable feedback across multiple projects, teams, and accounts.
• Act as a hands-on designer on key projects when needed, particularly high-visibility or strategically important work.
• Champion strong visual systems, craft, and attention to detail across all deliverables.

Team Leadership & Development
• Serve as the primary creative and design leader for the design team - representing the team in leadership conversations/meetings.
• Mentor and coach designers at all levels, helping them grow both creatively and professionally.
• Establish clear expectations, feedback loops, and growth paths for designers.
• Partner with People Operations and leadership on performance reviews, promotions, hiring needs, and team development.
• Foster a design culture rooted in craft, curiosity, inclusivity, and collaboration.

Operational Partnership
• Partner closely with the Design Resource Manager to align creative needs with staffing capacity and skill sets.
• Collaborate with Creative, Production, and Accounts to help define scopes, timelines, and realistic design deliverables.
• Identify workflow challenges or inefficiencies and help evolve design processes to support scale and quality.
• Uphold consistency, quality, and efficiency across multiple teams and accounts.

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
• Collaborate with Creative, Strategy, Editorial, Production, and Account leadership to bring ideas to life visually.
• Translate strategy and creative concepts into compelling visual systems and executions.
• Establish design standards that support broader brand storytelling, campaign goals, and business objectives.
• Act as a design voice in senior-level creative discussions and decision-making.

Qualifications:
• 10 years of professional design experience, including senior-level leadership roles.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating excellence across brand, digital, and campaign work.
• Proven experience leading, mentoring, and growing multidisciplinary design teams.
• Comfortable balancing hands-on design work with high-level creative oversight and direction.
• Experience working in fast-paced, agency environments with multiple clients and workstreams.
• Strong communicator with the ability to deliver clear, constructive, and motivating creative feedback.
• Deep understanding of brand systems, visual storytelling, and modern design tools and workflows.

--

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Saylor Agency? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.
Create alert