Creative Director

 

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 400,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy. 

Role Overview:

We’re looking for an exceptional, hands-on Creative Director to bring our brand to life through high-quality, visually compelling creative work. As part of our in-house Brand Studio, you will be responsible for translating brand vision into powerful, consistent, and beautifully crafted visuals across all mediums, including advertising, digital, print, events, and product marketing.

This is an individual contributor role for someone who thrives in the craft of design, pushing creative boundaries while ensuring brand consistency. You’ll be deeply involved in the day-to-day execution of design work, working closely with designers, producers, web teams, and even event teams to maintain a cohesive and elevated brand aesthetic 

As a mature, late-stage startup, we’re looking for a creative director who can lead by doing—someone with exceptional taste, a sharp eye for detail, and the ability to guide designers in executing best-in-class creative work. If you’re passionate about composition, typography, imagery, and visual storytelling, and love crafting brand-defining creative work, we’d love to meet you.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities:

• Define the Visual Identity: Ensure a strong, cohesive, and recognizable brand presence across all creative outputs.
• Craft Beautiful Brand Moments: Design beautiful and purposeful websites, landing pages and interactive digital assets for campaigns that showcase the best of our brand. 
• Provide Creative Direction and Hands-On Design Leadership: Offer insightful, constructive feedback to designers to ensure every piece of creative work meets the highest standards of quality and to elevate elements like composition, typography and imagery to ensure pixel-perfect execution.
• Champion Craft & Execution: Push the team to think beyond the obvious and execute at a world-class level, refining work through iteration and thoughtful critique.
• Maintain Brand Consistency: Develop and enforce brand guidelines that align with our evolving brand strategy.
• Evolve Visual Language: Identify opportunities to refine and expand our visual system, ensuring the brand remains fresh, modern, and impactful.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner with producers, web designers, event teams, and marketing to align aesthetics across all platforms and campaigns.
• Stay Ahead of Trends: Keep up with design, photography, illustration, and motion trends to inspire fresh ideas and push creative boundaries.

Experience Required:

• 8+ years of experience in visual design, brand design, or art direction, preferably in in-house creative teams, agencies, or high-growth startups.
• Expert-level craft in composition, typography, color, and layout—you have an eye for what makes design truly exceptional.
• Strong portfolio showcasing world-class brand design, advertising, and visual storytelling across multiple platforms.
• Experience creating and evolving visual identity systems, ensuring consistency and quality across a brand’s touchpoints.
• Ability to provide clear, actionable feedback and guide designers toward better execution.
• Highly collaborative mindset—comfortable working with designers, marketers, producers, writers, and cross-functional teams.
• Hands-on approach—excited to dive into projects and refine execution alongside the team.
• Adaptability and resilience—able to work in a fast-paced, ever-changing startup environment while delivering exceptional creative work.

Nice-to-Haves:

• Experience with photo direction, illustration, or motion graphics.
• Background in advertising or editorial design.
• Knowledge of web design principles and UI/UX best practices.
• Experience with AI-driven design tools or emerging creative technologies.

This is a rare opportunity to own and evolve a brand’s visual identity, creating memorable, high-impact creative work that drives business and brand success. If you’re a creativ