Director, Visual Graphic Design

Who we are looking for

We are looking for a Director, Visual Graphic Design to join our Concept Excellence team in Nike Global Design. Concept Design is defining the future of Nike, bridging the worlds of emerging innovation, athlete insights, product design, and brand storytelling to develop the ideas that will define the brand. Concept Design is the creative function that ideates, illustrates, and shepherds Nike’s key initiatives to athletes around the globe. The Director, Visual Graphic Design leads visual/graphic language aspect of this process for the Concept Excellence Team centrally in collaboration with the Field of Play Concept Teams. Candidates for this role must be collaborative, imaginative, and tactical, as they will turn creative strategy and big ideas into visual art direction and storytelling to influence the Nike organization!

The Director, Visual Graphic Design is both an outstanding leader and a collaborative teammate, focused on both defining the visual language of concepts and defining the aesthetics of the experiences to bring them to life, alongside their cross-functional teammates. They are experienced design leaders and can work across mediums including graphics, art direction, moving image and spatial design as well as an understanding of strategy. They have a passion for creativity and are committed to staying on top of current and future trends in design, creative culture and technology.

As a candidate for this role, you have passion for creative leadership, collaborative energy, and the ability to envision the visual world around a concept that distill a range of cultural, athlete, and business insights into creative strategy, brand identity, and world-building that activate the Nike organization around your execution. You are truly a multi-faceted creative who loves not only graphic design and art direction but blue sky thinking and crafting all the materials that will bring a concept to life.

What you will work on

As Director, Visual Graphic Design your job is visualize Nike worlds. You’ll work directly with the Concept Excellence team, Nike Design Leadership team, Field of Play Concept Teams, consumer insights and brand business leaders to visualize opportunities and ideas can connect with athletes around the globe.

A given day can consist of working with Nike Design Leadership to visualize concepts, brainstorms with concept excellence team, branding & visualizing concepts, art directing photo shoots, inspiration travel, meeting with agency partners, gathering athlete insights, or pitching your big idea to Nike leadership. Along with your team, you will build visual world around the concepts and deploy your combination of strategy, creative direction, art direction and world building to illustrate those ideas for the organization.

Who you will work with

The Director, Visual Graphic Design reports to the VP, Concept Excellence, manages Concept Designers, and works with the larger Concept Excellence team. In your day-to-day you collaborate with Nike Design Leadership Team, Product Design and Product Innovation teams.

What you will bring

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Design or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• At least 8 years professional experience in design, within product or marketing, brand or agency.
• A passion for the Athlete*, Sport* and Culture.
• Expertise in all aspects of visual design
• Experience in creative strategy and narrative.
• Experience managing other creatives as direct reports.
• Solid portfolio of relevant work, displaying a passion for inspirational storytelling, photo art direction, brand identity, and world building.
• Excellent verbal and visual communication skills; adept at presenting and defending creative ideas.
• Ability to collaborate with and effectively manage external creative partners.
• Ability to orchestrate creative collaboration across a network of creative studios.
• A positive mentality with proven ability to flex and adapt to changing business needs while maintaining creative quality.
• Laser-sharp focus to work quickly and efficiently under pressure.
• Strong interpersonal resourcefulness with the ability to cultivate cross-functional partnerships and an open, positive and collaborative environment.
• Highly developed curiosity and in-depth understanding of design culture and youth culture, current and past.