John McNeil Studio is hiring: Art Director in Berkeley

The role

John McNeil Studio is looking for an Art Director who can contribute across the full spectrum of creative work—from brand identity to integrated campaigns to motion-first storytelling. This person thinks conceptually, thrives in fast-moving environments, and elevates every idea with strong taste, craft, and clarity.

In addition to broader brand and campaign work, you’ll guide the creative execution of our social newsroom program. You’ll drive ideation, ensure visual consistency, and give designers, animators, and editors the direction they need to move fast without sacrificing quality. As the creative anchor of the newsroom, you’ll set the visual tone for each cycle, assign work, and ensure content flows smoothly from concept to delivery. You’ll also partner with strategists, writers, directors, and designers to contribute to brand worlds and campaign concepts, helping bring ideas to life across channels.

What you’ll do

• Newsroom Leadership
  • Guide the day-to-day creative workflow of the newsroom—assigning work, setting visual direction, and ensuring consistent output.
  • Partner with the newsroom strategist and designers to shape each asset cycle with ideas that are on-brand, reactive, and culturally aware.
  • Guide designers, animators, and editors on layout, motion, video, image selection, and final asset polish.
  • Maintain a consistent visual identity across a large volume of content while continuously evolving and optimizing it.
  • Keep the team sharp by bringing POVs on trends, formats, platform behaviors, and what’s working in the broader social landscape.
• Art Direction + Concept Development
  • Translate complex ideas into clear, compelling visual concepts for brand, product, and integrated campaigns.
  • Work closely with creative leadership to bring concepts to life from early exploration through execution.
  • Explore new visual approaches and formats that elevate the work and keep it modern.
  • Collaborate with strategy to connect insights to creative ideas that are smart, scalable, and grounded in audience behavior.
• Design Craft + Creative Production
  • Create (and oversee the creation of) graphics, visuals, video layouts, storyboards, and other content across digital, social, web, and campaign environments.
  • Ensure a high bar for layout, typography, photography, color, and motion design.
  • Work with production teams, illustrators, photographers, and editors to execute work that’s fast, clean, and on-brand.
  • Support shoots, selects, and asset management as needed to keep the newsroom and campaigns operating smoothly.

What you bring

• 4–7 years of agency experience.
• A passion for innovation and technology with a solid understanding of digital tools and trends.
• The ability to effectively communicate ideas, detailed design, and design rationale.
• Extensive digital design capabilities.
• Strong understanding of digital design principles, including layout and typography.
• Strong aesthetic sensibility.
• Ability to art direct and guide designers.
• Pixel perfect attention to detail and the ability to translate that feedback into action for designers.
• Must have experience, skill and efficiency in the latest versions of applicable programs: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
• A self-starter with a strong work ethic: willing to work hard, collaborate with colleagues and look for ways to solve challenges.
• Experience with light animation and AI generative tools (e.g., Sora, Veo3) is a strong bonus.

This is a full time position with a generous benefits package including healthcare benefits, FSA, PTO and 401k. Location is onsite full time at our Studio in Berkeley, California.

https://www.johnmcneilstudio.com/