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Senior Visual Designer Job at College Board in New York

College Board · New York, NY, USA ·

Pay:
$72,000-$120,000/yr
Job type:
Freelance

Director, Senior Visual Designer

You'll join CB Creative, College Board's in-house design team within Engagement and Reach, leading creative strategy, brand stewardship, and campaign design across AP, SAT, BigFuture, and enterprise brand work. Our team blends deep brand expertise with fast-turn campaign production, working across formats and channels to keep the College Board brand consistent and effective at scale. As a Director, Senior Visual Designer, you'll own and develop compelling visual and video solutions that connect with our key audiences, while owning the College Board brand and video system—its development, standards, and evolution—across EaR. You're just as comfortable building out a visual identity system as you are concepting and editing video and motion content—video and animation experience is required. We're looking for a creative problem solver who's ready to make the brand's video and visual presence sharper, faster, and more consistent. If you are adaptable, service-oriented, and dedicated to being an advocate for our users through great design, then we want to work with you.
In this role, you will:
Strategize (60%)
Direct brand and video decisions for outreach, operational, and campaign initiatives, and recommend and defend brand and video decisions to EaR leadership, design colleagues, and cross-functional partners as needed.
Direct and mentor freelance designers and outside agency partners on brand and video execution, holding their output to College Board standards.
Identify emerging brand and video needs not yet covered by existing standards, such as new formats, platforms, or program-specific requirements, and set direction before a playbook exists, with authority to decide new standards independently.
Maintain system documentation as a living deliverable, published and updated regularly, so standards do not depend on individual memory.
Use external exemplars and benchmarking to challenge legacy approaches and raise the visual and video bar.
Create (40%)
Concept, design, and develop brand and video assets from start to finish—including social, digital, email, print, and campaign video/motion content—managing all phases from concept through completion.
Own project timelines and delivery for brand and video work, partnering with production scheduling on capacity; resolve delivery risks independently, escalating only when the decision required falls outside the role's authority.
Own final sign-off on brand and video consistency across CB Creative's output, with authority to decide new standards independently and require revisions before project completion.
Resolve conflicts between agency-produced creative and established brand standards, deciding when a deviation is warranted for a specific campaign need, with authority to override agency direction.
About You
8–10 years of experience in graphic design, with hands-on video and motion graphics production experience—video and animation experience is required, including owning a brand or design system at organizational scale.
Advanced understanding of visual identity systems, hierarchy, typography, aesthetics, illustration, photography, and composition.
Experience working with brand-level design systems, with a track record of setting standards that others follow and evolving a visual identity in partnership with cross-functional teams across multiple programs.
Experience directing external agencies or freelancers, including holding them to a quality bar and addressing underperformance.
A record of making and defending design decisions with data and external benchmarks.
Mastery of industry-standard design tools, including Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects) and Figma. Motion graphics experience in Cinema 4D or Blender is a plus.
A portfolio demonstrating both brand/visual identity work and video/motion content.
Bachelor's degree preferred.
Innovative conceptual thinking and problem-solving skills, with pixel-perfect attention to detail.
The ability to travel 2-3 times a year to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business.
All roles at College Board require:
A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work
Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort with learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.
Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal
A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.
A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.
A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success
Authorization to work in the United States
About Our Process
Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.
What We Offer
At College Board, we offer more than a paycheck: we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We're a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.
A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation
The hiring range for this role is $72,000-$120,000.
Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.
We aim to make our best offer upfront, rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.
We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.