What does a senior creative director do?
A senior creative director spearheads the visual aspects of a company's marketing and advertising departments. They manage creative teams and lead the efforts from conceptualizing to executing projects and campaigns. As a senior creative director, their responsibilities typically include setting goals and budgets, establishing guidelines, coordinating departments, delegating tasks to managers, researching new business opportunities, liaising with internal and external parties, and developing strategies to optimize procedures. Furthermore, they must serve as a mentor to junior directors and staff, promoting and enforcing the company's policies and regulations.
Senior creative director responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior creative director resumes:
- Develop and manage business-to-business PowerPoint presentation service that create new business opportunities and increase revenue for the company.
- Generate graphic assets for use in advertising, apparel, and collateral.
- Direct and design apparel, skateboard, sticker, and small accessory design.
- Co-Manage digital design firm specializing in e-commerce and in-home product interface design.
- Provide creative copy direction and copywriting for pharmaceutical clients' internal corporate communications programs, training programs and sales force meetings.
- Budget responsibility for B2B, B2C and corporate creative.
- Create and produce successful strategies, sales presentations and integrate B2B, B2C campaigns.
- Formulate online marketing campaigns and site audits to maximize ROI.
- Design websites, landing web pages, POS materials, and collateral pieces.
- Develop and launch Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin-Robbins' local store website portal for franchisees to order POS materials specifically to their needs.
- Collaborate with executive staff to develop content and produce photographic editorials.
Senior creative director skills and personality traits
We calculated that 6% of Senior Creative Directors are proficient in Creative Direction, Brand Development, and Graphic Design. They’re also known for soft skills such as Creativity, Leadership skills, and Communication skills.
We break down the percentage of Senior Creative Directors that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Creative Direction, 6%
Set technical and creative direction for company.
- Brand Development, 6%
Produced concept videos for new brand development that are on-trend with consumer demand as well as marketing strategy.
- Graphic Design, 6%
Direct photography, graphic design, e-commerce, branding, social media and promotional sales collateral from concept through completion.
- Digital Marketing, 4%
Developed integrated digital marketing/radio promotional campaigns for the Museum of Science Boston that boosted ticket sales during key school vacation periods.
- Photography, 4%
Developed global digital menu board design strategy, highlighting company's food quality story using proprietary food photography and animation.
- Creative Strategy, 4%
Managed development of award-winning U.S. marketing creative strategy coined, Simple Bold.
"creative direction," "brand development," and "graphic design" are among the most common skills that senior creative directors use at work. You can find even more senior creative director responsibilities below, including:
Creativity. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a senior creative director to have is creativity. Their role and responsibilities require that "art directors must be able to come up with interesting and innovative ideas to develop advertising campaigns, set designs, or layout options." Senior creative directors often use creativity in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "advised on best practice creative design and copywriting. "
Leadership skills. Many senior creative director duties rely on leadership skills. "art directors must be able to organize, direct, and motivate other artists," so a senior creative director will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways senior creative director responsibilities rely on leadership skills: "provided successful visual design concepts and leadership through collaboration on branding, packaging, sales collateral and retail merchandising initiatives. "
Communication skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of senior creative directors is communication skills. This skill is critical to many everyday senior creative director duties, as "art directors must be able to listen to and speak with staff and clients to ensure that they understand employees’ ideas and clients’ desires for advertisements, publications, or movie sets." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "developed a branded communications strategy that helped build awareness of our resume services through social, videos, and content marketing. "
Time-management skills. A big part of what senior creative directors do relies on "time-management skills." You can see how essential it is to senior creative director responsibilities because "balancing competing priorities and multiple projects while meeting strict deadlines is critical for art directors." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical senior creative director tasks: "nurtured client relationships and ensured quality delivery of a wide range of projects, often under very tight deadlines and budgets. "
The three companies that hire the most senior creative directors are:
- The Freeman Company LLC21 senior creative directors jobs
- Apple4 senior creative directors jobs
- Sally Beauty Holdings4 senior creative directors jobs
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Compare different senior creative directors
Senior creative director vs. Graphic design manager
A graphic design manager is primarily in charge of leading and overseeing the efforts of a graphic design team, ensuring adherence to goals and deadlines. It is their duty to learn and analyze the purpose of design, coordinate staff, liaise with internal and external parties, set goals and objectives, manage schedules, and conceptualize plans. Furthermore, as a graphic design manager, it is essential to lead and encourage teams to reach goals while implementing the company's policies and regulations, including its vision and mission.
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a senior creative director are more likely to require skills like "digital marketing," "photography," "creative strategy," and "video production." On the other hand, a job as a graphic design manager requires skills like "project management," "customer service," "brochures," and "print collateral." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
Graphic design managers earn the highest salaries when working in the finance industry, with an average yearly salary of $82,776. On the other hand, senior creative directors are paid more in the manufacturing industry with an average salary of $161,176.graphic design managers tend to reach similar levels of education than senior creative directors. In fact, graphic design managers are 4.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Senior creative director vs. Art consultant
Each career also uses different skills, according to real senior creative director resumes. While senior creative director responsibilities can utilize skills like "creative direction," "brand development," "digital marketing," and "photography," art consultants use skills like "art gallery," "contemporary art," "art collections," and "art shows."
Art consultants may earn a lower salary than senior creative directors, but art consultants earn the most pay in the internet industry with an average salary of $68,646. On the other hand, senior creative directors receive higher pay in the manufacturing industry, where they earn an average salary of $161,176.art consultants earn higher levels of education than senior creative directors in general. They're 6.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for senior creative directors in the next 3-5 years?
Scott Foster
Associate Professor of Studio Art, Chair of Creative Arts Department, Siena College
Senior creative director vs. Co-director
Some important key differences between the two careers include a few of the skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of each. Some examples from senior creative director resumes include skills like "creative direction," "brand development," "graphic design," and "digital marketing," whereas a co-director is more likely to list skills in "oversight," "curriculum development," "community outreach," and "mental health. "
Co-directors earn the best pay in the health care industry, where they command an average salary of $83,655. Senior creative directors earn the highest pay from the manufacturing industry, with an average salary of $161,176.Most co-directors achieve a higher degree level compared to senior creative directors. For example, they're 7.2% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 4.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior creative director vs. Assistant art director
Even though a few skill sets overlap between senior creative directors and assistant art directors, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a senior creative director might have more use for skills like "creative direction," "brand development," "digital marketing," and "photography." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of assistant art directors require skills like "adobe illustrator," "mac," "editorial layouts," and "adobe indesign. "
In general, assistant art directors earn the most working in the technology industry, with an average salary of $102,665. The highest-paying industry for a senior creative director is the manufacturing industry.assistant art directors reach similar levels of education compared to senior creative directors, in general. The difference is that they're 2.5% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.1% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of senior creative director
Updated January 8, 2025
