Senior Art Director, Creative Development

Job Posting Title:

Senior Art Director, Creative Development

Req ID:

10095885

Job Description:

About the Role and Team:

The Senior Art Director, Creative Development is responsible for providing artistic leadership across our extensive portfolio of licensed console, mobile, and PC games. They will manage a talented art department and partner with Disney Games production, creative, and marketing teams, as well as our world-class developers to deliver exceptional and authentic Disney and Pixar experiences for fans and gamers alike. Leveraging both artistic and licensing best practices to provide visual direction and IP guidance to our licensees across all game titles.

The Senior Art Director, Creative Development will report to the VP, General Manager of Disney & Pixar Games.

This is a Full-Time role.

What You Will Do:

• Oversee a diverse portfolio of games from a visual and graphics perspective; establish best-in-class standards on the target device, benchmark competing titles, and provide recommendations to develop and improve overall visual quality.

• Review art and visual design submissions from our global licensing partners including but not limited to game and marketing assets such as character assets, world designs, animations, key art, etc.; ensure all material submitted meets our brand and quality standards.

• Generate insightful, clear and concise direction, feedback and support to our licensees through reference decks, written notes, draw-overs, and/or paint-overs with the goal of coaching and helping them understand our brands better while getting them to approval status.

• Manage a large team of talented artists from various disciplines and effectively distribute project workload between them.

• Grow and mentor talent from an artistic, communication, and workflow perspective, including our Creative APAC Teams (China).

• Build and maintain strong relationships with film and television studio creatives to bridge the gap between licensees and game developers.

• Attend art reviews with studio creatives; generate notes and share feedback with our licensees and dev teams.

• Gather, develop, and provide brand guidelines and reference materials to licensees.

• Research, identify and explore new visual styles and executions of our characters and worlds that are authentic and appealing; provide suggestions to our licensing partners while encouraging their own creative exploration.

• Balance the requirements of our licensees, brand, and key stakeholders while delivering against our collective gaming goals.

• Partner with our licensees to develop high-quality style guides, game reference guides, and global pitch kits to be shared across various lines of business.

• Acquire deep understanding of ‘new’ brands being developed by Disney; share relevant information with our licensees in the form of reference guides. 

• Collaborate with colleagues to share ideas, best practices and creative methods.

• Act as a Creative Ambassador and Consultant within Disney, providing valuable insight and guidance around art direction in games.

Requires Qualifications & Skills:

• Excellent creative draftsmanship skills with the ability to sketch, design, and digitally paint.

• An eye for vision and execution as demonstrated by a top-rate portfolio or demo reel.

• Broad and deep understanding of the Disney brand including lore, design, and aesthetics.

• Extensive game development experience building and supporting top grossing, critically acclaimed, and/or AAA budgeted games on console and mobile.

• Experience developing artwork for world-class brands.

• Excellent understanding of the games licensing business including trade-offs, creative, and production challenges.

• Experience providing feedback to external teams (domestic and international).

• Adept at problem-solving (both alone and in groups) with the ability to foresee and highlight challenges and provide effective and achievable mitigation efforts.

• Ability to reconcile conflicting information to meet objectives.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to provide clear and concise feedback and present ideas with clarity and conviction.

• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple complex challenges while consistently meeting commitments and deadlines.

• Ability to function and thrive in a very dynamic environment.

• Ability to think strategically but operate tactically as needed.

• Exceptional attention to detail with a clear understanding of th