3D Art Director

Art Director

Tolan is an Embodied Companion: a cute, friendly AI alien that you talk with naturally, like a friend. They have unique preferences and personalities, and over time they form memories about you, your friendship, and your life. Tolan is built by an experienced team with a lot of history together. We previously founded Even, acquired for $300m in 2022. Our team comes from places like Apple, Pixar, Valve, and Square. Our design and creative team has won Apple Design Awards. Our investors include the designers and founders behind products like Instagram, Retro, Behance, Vimeo and Notion. We love to work hard, with a high degree of autonomy and ownership. We work together in-person in downtown SF.

The role

We're looking for an Art Director to define and own the visual identity of Tolan's world. You'll establish the aesthetic vision for our 3D interactive companion, then bring it to life-from early concept through production. You'll work directly with our Creative Director to shape what Tolan looks like, how they move, and the world they inhabit. You'll lead a small team of artists, set the quality bar, and still get your hands dirty making key art yourself.

You might be a fit if you:

Have 5+ years owning art direction on shipped interactive/3D products, ideally games or real-time experiences
Can define a visual style from scratch-color, shape language, lighting, character design-and document it so others can execute
Have led small art teams and know how to give feedback that actually makes work better
Still make things yourself. You're not just directing, you're producing concept art, style frames, or 3D work that sets the bar
Thrive when working closely with creative, engineering, and production-you can talk pipelines with tech artists and vibes with designers
Care about personality and emotion in your work. The best visual direction makes you feel something
Have a portfolio that shows range, taste, and a point of view-not just technical competence
Understand that great art direction serves users-you're curious about how people respond to your work and use data to inform design decisions
Bonus points if you: Have worked on character-driven products where personality and expressiveness matter
Have art directed across multiple disciplines (character, environment, UI, VFX)
Have a background in stylized, not photorealistic, art direction