How To Become An Interactive Art Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is an interactive art director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Yash Egami

An interactive art director develops ideas and concepts that inform customers about a brand, product, or service. These professionals use creative devices such as theme, symbolism, and metaphor on platforms like websites or blogs. They work in advertising agencies, marketing agencies, or publishing houses. The interactive art director is responsible for creating web pages, animations, and the likes to promote a business. As an interactive art director, you must have an in-depth knowledge of the latest digital design software, publishing technology, and other programs that would aid your job.

You must possess creative, problem-solving, management, collaboration, and communication skills. However, all these would make no sense without a job. To get a job, you need at least a bachelor's degree in fine art or any related discipline and extensive experience in digital media. In the United States, an interactive art director earns an average salary of $82,682.

What general advice would you give to an interactive art director?

Yash Egami

VP, The One Club

A recent Forrester report says that the ad industry will lose 50,000 jobs through 2021, with 35,000 of them already lost since the pandemic. The traditional ad agency model was already in trouble, with many brands hiring away talent and creating their own in-house agencies. Add to that the recent reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, and what we're seeing is an industry that is being forced to go through monumental change in order to survive.

While traditional roles like art director or copywriter are on the decline, the good news is that, in an effort to reinvent themselves, agencies are seeking creatives with digital skills like UX design and programming. The rise of in-house creative departments has also meant more opportunities for job seekers within brands rather than agencies. And because of the demand for more diversity from clients and those within advertising, recruiters are making more of an effort to hire multicultural talent.

At The One Club for Creativity, we've been at the forefront of change in the industry through our diversity and inclusion, professional development and gender equality programs. We recently hosted our annual multicultural career fair, "Where Are All the Black People?" that brought together thousands of diverse talent with 40 agencies and companies looking to hire. We launched One School, a free online program for Black creatives who want to get into the industry but don't have a portfolio or the economic means to afford to go to ad school. And we're working on upskilling courses for professionals who want to reinvent themselves or keep up with the changing demands of our industry.

So if you're a recent graduate who specializes in art direction, our advice would be to keep an open mind about what kind of company you want to work for and think about expanding your skillset to include digital skills so that you can future-proof your career. Where you are isn't as important because, since the pandemic, agencies have become more comfortable with working remotely and they are more open to having a workforce not centered on the traditional agency hubs, like New York or Los Angeles.

ScoreInteractive Art DirectorUS Average

Salary

7.1

Avg. Salary $90,392

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.9

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.63%

Asian 7.71%

Black or African American 4.35%

Hispanic or Latino 14.31%

Unknown 5.56%

White 67.45%

Gender

female 24.44%

male 75.56%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

7.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.0

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an interactive art director

Explore interactive art director education requirements

Most common interactive art director degrees

Bachelor's

81.6 %

Associate

10.9 %

Master's

5.4 %

Start to develop specific interactive art director skills

Skills	Percentages
Develop User	42.42%
UI	7.05%
Visual Design	5.07%
Art Direction	3.92%
Creative Solutions	3.29%

Complete relevant interactive art director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New interactive art directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an interactive art director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real interactive art director resumes.

Research interactive art director duties and responsibilities

Lead requirements definition with card sorting, user and stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, paper prototyping, and heuristics.
Develop front-end code including XHTML, PHP, JavaScript and CSS.
Involve in UX design and interaction as well basic HTML coding.
Facilitate sales teams by creating interactive presentations on CD-ROM and HTML email campaigns.

Get interactive art director experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become an interactive art director. The most common roles before becoming an interactive art director include art director, graphic designer team lead and web designer.

Prepare your interactive art director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your interactive art director resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an interactive art director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable interactive art director resume templates

Build a professional interactive art director resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your interactive art director resume.