Senior Art Director (On-Site, New York)

Who are we?

MATTE is a 360° creative studio at the convergence of hype, storytelling and design. We bring people together to inspire new ways of engaging, to provoke long term progress, and to entertain audiences around the world, while helping forward-thinking brands and institutions nimbly and truly do the same. Our studio capabilities range from strategic ideation and insights, creative development, branding and identity, experiential, web design and development, campaigns and content creation, all the way through full-scale production and execution.

About this role:

We're looking for a Senior Art Director who is, first and foremost, a great designer and campaign maker — someone with a strong visual point of view, a portfolio of integrated campaign and content work they're proud of, and the craft to make big ideas land across every channel. On top of that foundation, you're someone who has leaned into AI tooling early and uses it fluently as part of how you work. You see generative tools the way previous generations of art directors saw Photoshop or After Effects: a force multiplier for taste and judgment, not a replacement for them.

In this role, you'll lead concept and visual direction across integrated campaigns, content campaigns, brand systems, and experiential work, while shaping how our creative team integrates AI into ideation, production, and iteration. You'll set the bar for what "AI-assisted, human-led" creative looks like at our company.

Responsibilities:

• Lead concept development for integrated campaigns, content campaigns, brand identity, and experiential work.

• Build campaign platforms that scale — anchoring a central idea and extending it across broadcast, social, digital, OOH, and earned channels.

• Drive visual storytelling and establish the look and feel across all creative expressions of a campaign.

• Develop high-volume content campaigns and always-on social work without sacrificing craft or conceptual rigor.

• Execute high-level design work across digital, print, motion, and spatial mediums.

• Balance hands-on design with overarching creative direction.

• Partner with Creative Directors and Strategy to translate insights and briefs into impactful campaign ideas.

• Present ideas, campaign platforms, and visual systems directly to clients, refining work based on feedback.

• Guide and mentor designers, elevating craft and pushing conceptual thinking.

• Work closely with producers and be present on set to ensure visual continuity and quality across shoots.

• Stay ahead of cultural trends, design innovation, and emerging technologies to push the work forward.

• Use generative AI tools — image, video, motion, 3D, and voice — to accelerate ideation, generate variations, build moodboards, prototype campaign directions, and produce finished or near-finished assets where appropriate.

• Apply AI to scale content campaigns efficiently — generating variants, localizations, and channel-specific cuts while protecting brand consistency.

• Develop and document AI workflows, prompt libraries, and quality standards that the broader creative team can adopt.

• Build AI fluency across the team, mentoring designers on integrating new tools without losing creative rigor.

• Collaborate with legal, brand, and ML/engineering partners on rights, model selection, and responsible-use guidelines.

What we're looking for:

• 7+ years of experience in art direction or senior design roles at an agency, in-house brand team, or studio.

• A portfolio with strong, recognizable campaign work — integrated campaigns, content campaigns, and brand platforms that ran in market.

• Proven ability to build a campaign idea and extend it cohesively across film, social, digital, print, OOH, and experiential.

• Experience leading content campaigns at scale — episodic social, creator-led work, always-on programs — with a clear visual system holding it together.

• Strong typography, composition, color, and conceptual thinking, with a clear and articulate point of view on craft.

• Expert-level Figma skills — you live in it, build clean and scalable files, use components, variables, and auto-layout fluently, and can lead design reviews and hand-offs in the tool.

• Strong command of the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects).

• Demonstrable, hands-on experience using generative AI tools as part of real client or brand work — not just experiments.

• Comfort with image and video models (e.g., Midjourney, Firefly, Sora, Runway, Veo, Stable Diffusion), as well as adjacent tooling for upscaling, inpainting, style transfer, and 3D.

• Track record of using AI to enhance campaign development — from early concept exploration through production and content scaling.

• Strong prompting instincts, plus the judgment to know when AI is the right tool and when traditional production is better.

• Experience leading creative on multi-disciplinary campaigns and mentoring more junior designers.

• Confidence presenting campaign ideas and platforms to senior clients or executives, and translating creative decisions into business language.

• A collaborative, low-ego working style — you make the people around you better.

• Comfort giving and receiving sharp creative feedback.

• Curiosity about new models, tools, and workflows — and a habit of bringing what you learn back to the team.

• Able to work from our Soho office four days per week (Fridays remote)

Salary Range: $120,000-140,000/year based on experience

Benefits include:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage

• 401k with a 4% company contribution max match

• Fully covered yearly Citibike membership

• Talkspace membership

• Competitive PTO package

• End of Year Recharge paid time off

• Sabbatical Program option after three years of employment with us

• Parental Leave for all new parents

Everyone is welcome at MATTE - we’re passionate about building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and creating an environment where our differences are celebrated. MATTE provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, MATTE will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.