Creative Director

Washingtonian is seeking an imaginative, collaborative, and relentlessly ambitious leader for its creative department. For 60 years, the award-winning city magazine for the Washington area has been a home for groundbreaking feature writing, essential service journalism, and arresting visual storytelling. We’re looking for someone who can help us take the magazine to the next level, leading a high-caliber team of designers, photo editors, and staff photographers.

Responsibilities:

• Overall look and feel of the magazine from a visual perspective
• Management of a small art and photography team
• Brainstorming and designing covers
• Designing features and service packages
• Directing staff and freelance contributors, and managing workflow
• Working with editors on visually-driven story ideas
• Managing a budget
• Helping plan and design ancillary publications
• Helping with the design of online versions of print articles
• Providing input on all aspects of the brand's visual presence

Unofficial responsibilities include: helping create a freewheeling creative environment where staffers are encouraged to cook up ambitious ideas big and small; inspiring a talented team of designers who want to step up their game and editorial folks who want to better collaborate; setting and maintaining high visual standards; and having a lot of fun while doing so.

In addition to first-class design skills, our ideal Creative Director would possess a large rolodex of artists and photographers who can help make our pages even more exciting. The Creative Director reports to the Editor-In-Chief.

Qualifications:

• Experienced print art director and designer with strong attention to detail and love and understanding of typography, design, illustration, and photography
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to talk through editorial ideas in a lively, collaborative, and fast-paced environment
• Ability to nurture and develop an internal team of award-winning designers, art directors, and photo editors
• Strong network of industry connections with illustrators, designers, and photographers
• Works closely to implement designs across all brand platforms, including print, web, and video
• Manages budget and allocates spending for freelance, illustrations, and photography
• Proficiency in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop required; experience with K4 a plus
• Web-based graphic design experience a plus
• Must have a minimum of 5 years of magazine experience, a love of typography, a keen eye for complex page design, and be a true team player

Salary: $80,000 to $120,000.

To apply: Please send your cover letter, résumé, and samples (no larger than 10MB) or a link to your online portfolio to designjobs@washingtonian.com with "Creative Director" in the subject line.

Washingtonian, the magazine Washington lives by, is the region’s top source of information for dining, shopping, entertainment, and personalities. It has been Washington’s most trusted guide to living, working, and playing in the area for more than four decades thanks to features like “100 Very Best Restaurants,” “Top Doctors,” and “Great Places to Live.” The print magazine is read each month by more than 400,000 people, who spend an average of 96 minutes with each issue and save each issue for an average of five months. Washingtonian.com reaches more than a million unique readers every month. Washingtonian is a five-time National Magazine Award winner for its reporting and writing.