VSA Partners is hiring: Freelance Associate Creative Director, Writing in Chicag

About You

You are a writer’s writer: you read books, love words, care deeply about punctuation, rhythm, and the craft of language. You are an equal‑parts strategist and stylist who obsessively refines copy to make it compelling. You thrive on collaboration with smart, hardworking people and hold themselves to the highest standards of excellence. You bring humanity into everything you do and are genuinely interested in all kinds of businesses, understanding how they operate. You distinguish between an idea and its execution, and you are passionate about building great brands and the advertising that powers their growth. You adapt, adjust, and bring something new to every performance.

Associate Creative Director, Writing – Responsibilities

• Lead the development and definition of the voice for a client, program, or individual project.
• Establish and/or interpret brand positioning, tone, and attributes.
• Think visually as well as verbally, contributing from the outset to the structure, concept, look, and feel of a client project.
• Work closely with strategists, designers, and other team members to create and refine content and/or build campaign concepts.
• Quickly identify gaps in knowledge and take initiative to fill them.
• Participate in new‑business development, contributing to RFP responses, pitches, and spec creative.
• Meet and manage deadlines.
• Foster a working environment that promotes and embraces independent and creative thinking, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Additional responsibilities as assigned.

Ideal Qualifications

• 6 to 9 years of experience in branding, marketing, advertising, business, communications, or a related field.
• An undergraduate degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Advertising, or Integrated/Strategic Communications.
• Experience in a client‑facing role in a professional services environment.
• A portfolio that demonstrates the required skills.

This is a contract‑to‑hire position with the intent to transition to a permanent, full‑time role pending performance and mutual fit.

Chicago Estimated Salary Range: $110,000—$127,000 USD

VSA Partners is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive, equitable environment for all employees. All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit and business need.