Creative Director

About the role:

We’re looking for a full-time Creative Director to join our multidisciplinary creative team and take on the creative vision for large-scale campaigns and design-led projects and pitches.

At Seventeen, a Creative Director is an expert in storytelling, who inspires and leads with a curious mindset, fusing exploration and strategy. You will bring a creative energy that provokes new ways of thinking, seeing and doing. You will find yourself interrogating briefs, pitching to global brands, presenting concepts and ideas, and managing and directing a team of creatives, designers and CG artists. Finding new angles of creative expression that embraces our collective soul mindset - we’re always thinking and making together, right through until delivery. Our process isn’t linear, it’s alive.

The right candidate will be able to demonstrate immersing themselves into strategy and conceptualising multiple living ideas from insights, as well as inspiring and empowering the team to explore and discover alternative concepts. You understand that ideas can still take on many various forms through experimentation and collaboration. We’re looking for someone who is confident directing multifarious ideas and translating into appropriate mediums be it live action, CG, graphic design, a mix of them all or something completely fresh. It will be your responsibility to present the vision and big ideas, whilst carefully guiding and collaborating with clients. You'll keep the spark of an idea alive and intact across different touch points and formats right up until its final realisation. You're someone who can inspire and direct under pressure, embracing and fueling the unexpected and the odd.

We’re a collective of Odd Minds that think unalike. If you see the world a little differently and find opportunity in the overlooked, this is the place for you.

We're looking for someone with the following skills and qualities:

• A committed attitude to create authentic, original and odd ideas that haven’t been seen before.

• A strong creative craft with a proven track record for leading unique standout work.

• Strategic and conceptual depth, with the ability to fuse visual and conceptual exploration with purpose.

• Have a full understanding of multiple creative processes - whether it's design, film, branding or 2D/3D animation - you are able to confidently and decisively give feedback to different teams.

• Have experience directing live action, CG and graphic design teams. Alternative or experimental workflows a plus.

• Confidence to bring your taste, references and ideas to the table to shape creative direction.

• A self-starter that is able to think laterally to problem-solve quickly with the team when opportunities for improvements or troubleshooting any issues arise.

• Easily able to manage multiple projects at different stages of production at the same time, whilst keeping calm and staying focused on the unique creative goal of each project.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication and presentation skills that inspire confidence in both clients and teams.

• Not taking client feedback prescriptively. Demonstrate an ability to ask insightful questions to unlock new layers of understanding at the brief stage all the way to final feedback. Creating a playful and respectful discourse with clients to find the best outcome.

• Creating inspiring and compelling pitches and presentations that clearly convey the creative vision.

• Confidence and clarity when leading, motivating, and mentoring creative teams.

• Building strong relationships with new and existing clients, helping guide them and manage their expectations through every project.

• Ensuring Seventeen’s standards of excellence are always met with an attention to detail when reviewing and signing-off work.

• A desire to represent Seventeen at industry events and talks.

• A genuine love of ideas, culture, and creativity in all its forms, from art and design to technology, film, music, fashion, and everything in between.

• Curiosity, tenacity, and a genuine desire to make the work and the people around you better.

• Help build a positive and collaborative creative culture with the agency - as well as offer up ideas for potential studio projects.

• Manage annual reviews of direct reports with ad-hoc 1-to-1 check ins throughout the year to talk about well-being and development opportunities - you'll bring this knowledge to the end of year review to help set new individual targets for the year ahead.

An essential part of this role is working closely with Producers and other Directors in the business, collaborating as trusted partners on projects you share. Together, you’ll bounce and interrogate ideas, present and run client review sessions, and ensure feedback is clearly communicated and acted on by the project team. You'll have a shared desire to make the project exude excellence, originality and soul - something we can all be proud of!

This is a full-time role, working 4.5 days per week - we wrap up at 1pm every Friday. While the role is primarily studio-based, we support a hybrid working approach, encouraging a healthy balance of home and studio days. Our core days are Mondays and Thursdays, when we all come together in the studio. We are not currently hiring for fully remote or freelance positions.