Concept Development Art Director

As a branded content and marketing Concept Development Art director, you create high-level campaigns and concepts that push creative boundaries. Your background blends strong design expertise with conceptual art direction, and your passion lies in sports and comedy. You’re on top of current sports and ESPN trends and demonstrate a strong desire to shape culture and bring the most innovative linear/social/digital solutions to our clients.

You have a sharp eye for layout, typography, and visual hierarchy, and you can translate a concept into polished, impactful design across multiple platforms. You thrive in a collaborative environment, working closely with fellow Art Directors, Copywriters, and Designers to bring ideas to life. By building relationships with both clients and internal teams, you develop work with creative insight, authority, and professional leadership.

Responsibilities:

• Work with fellow creatives and ensure the creative output, while reporting to a Creative Director
• Maintain the team’s creative vision for internal and external accounts
• Working with the production team, know or learn the production trends by building and maintaining relationships with directors and production vendors
• Conceptualize creative that is at the cutting edge of new innovations and trends, bringing in your own expertise and interests to make work better
• Develop client relationships and grow new business opportunities with the guidance of your manager
• Maintain ESPN brand consistency from a tone, copy and visual point of view
• Provide creative ideas that follow briefs from the client/strategy/account services team
• Work on multiple projects simultaneously while meeting deadlines
• Stay on top of trends and themes across ESPN shows and talent as well as sports in general
• Continuously develop your presentation skills, verbally and visually

Design Specific Responsibilities:

• Translate conceptual ideas into visually compelling designs across linear, digital, and social platforms
• Demonstrate expertise in layout, typography, composition, and color theory to elevate creative work
• Ensure all design deliverables meet the highest standards of visual quality and brand consistency
• Collaborate with motion designers, illustrators, and other creatives to bring campaigns to life
• Stay current on design tools, software, and emerging visual trends to keep creative fresh and innovative

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience working within a creative studio or media organization.
• Outstanding Portfolio: You demonstrate exceptional originality, innovation and multi-disciplinary thinking across your work.
• Creative Vision: You see the bigger picture, leading to PR-able and award-winning work.
• Big Idea Thinker: You go beyond the executional or tactical and come with campaign-able thoughts that can scale from social to TV and 360 campaigns.
• Design Skills: Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator).
• Design Excellence: You understand how to think visually and create beautiful visuals throughout the creative process. From concept decks to the design of end cards and digital banners to thinking of interesting visuals for linear content.
• Script Excellence: You understand how to bring your ideas to life in compelling scripts, channeling different tones for different clients.
• You’re a Sports Fan: Being passionate about sports and sports culture is a must.
• Culture: You are positive and collaborative and maintain our group’s culture of collaboration and growth.
• Proactive: You use your initiative and proactively come up with new ideas to push forward the creative work and develop the client relationship.
• Time Management: You can manage your time and meet deadlines while juggling multiple projects.
• Presentation Skills: Confidently pitch creative concepts and design ideas to clients and internal stakeholders, clearly articulating the vision, strategy, and execution to inspire buy-in and guide decision-making.
• Typography & Layout Mastery: Strong understanding of type hierarchy, composition, and grid systems to create clean, effective, and brand-right designs.
• Brand Consistency: Ability to interpret and evolve ESPN’s visual identity while ensuring consistency across all deliverables.
• Cross-Platform Design: Experience adapting creative for multiple formats and aspect ratios, ensuring design integrity across broadcast, digital, and social platforms.

Required Education:

• High School Diploma or equivalent

Preferred Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, Portfolio School, or equivalent experience

#ESPNMedia

The hiring range for this position in New York, NY is $96,160 to $132,220 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.