Senior Director Creative - Topps International/fanatics Collectibles

The Senior Director, Creative directs the creative team in the production of card design and packaging. The Senior Director, Creative is hands-on with conceptualising and artistically directing projects and managing the overall quality of work produced by the Design Department. The Senior Director, Creative is an experienced leader who can collaborate with team members from other departments, be flexible and work with aggressive deadlines.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage and lead a group of creative art directors and graphic designers in the production of card design, packaging, advertising and marketing collateral.
• Manage the designs from concept to completion. Establish the look and feel of each collection, maintaining brand heritage through consistent design.
• Conduct creative brief meetings with the Product Development group to discuss direction on how each release will be established.
• Implement technology decisions that help control the budget for each release, such as foil stamping, PMS and swatch designation decisions.
• Direct the designers in research and development of various technologies that create variation of design possibilities within the budget allotted
• Maintain the schedules for each designer and assign tasks according to the designers' strengths.
• Check each card for each collection to ensure accuracy of the design/photo direction and player information such as team colour, logo and spelling.
• Conduct engineering meetings with Prepress department and Production staff to ensure the accuracy of each collection and to ensure accuracy of the specifications of each design.
• Conduct creative review meetings with the Product Development group to ensure the design objectives have been met for each collection.
• Prepare annual department budget; contribute to strategic planning

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Ability to provide strong leadership with the ability to set direction, ensure accountability and encourage accomplishment
• Prioritize, manage and develop a team of graphic designers
• Demonstrated artistic and creative ability
• Extensive knowledge of the trading card industry past and present preferred. General knowledge of the sports and entertainment industries helpful
• Extensive knowledge of various sophisticated printing techniques, finishing and foil stamping technologies and the impact each has on card production
• Knowledge of the legal, practical and cost factors associated with memorabilia cards and the various limitations of the engineering process of multiple swatch memorabilia cards
• Working knowledge of the legal environment associated with publicity rights, trademarks and copyrights
• Extensive knowledge of all aspects of design including complex layout challenges, colour, spacing, sizing, print and web standards for file variations
• Working knowledge of property licensing limitations
• Professional demeanour; team player orientation
• Ability to interface with internal department employees at all levels

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in fine arts, graphic design or other related design discipline
• 10+ years' experience in a creative services role. 4+ years of Director level experience
• Sports industry experience highly desired
• Previous management experience, including budgeting, planning, training, hiring and team development
• Proficiency in Mac computers and Adobe Creative Suite 6 and Acrobat 9 Pro

The above list of job duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

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