Senior Design Director

The Senior Design Director will be a pivotal creative leader responsible for elevating design excellence, creative direction, and leading and growing the Design team across the HCM portfolio of brands and communities. This role oversees the design process from concept to execution, ensuring every project reflects and evolves our brand voice across both physical and digital experiences.

This role sits at the intersection of creativity and business, responsible for shaping compelling brand experiences while ensuring design operations run efficiently and effectively to deliver best in class results for our clients and communities. This role will balance big-picture thinking with hands-on execution—translating business goals and client needs into exceptional visual storytelling across both digital and physical platforms. As a seasoned manager and skilled practitioner, you will define and evolve our creative direction, oversee end-to-end execution, and support our high-performing, collaborative design team.

Team Leadership & Operations

• Team Management: Supervise and manage mid-to-senior level designers, providing consistent feedback to foster a collaborative environment of creative excellence.
• Resourcing & Delegation: Lead design team resourcing for in-house and campaign projects; delegate work effectively to promote individual career growth.
• Agile Project Management: Utilize Asana to champion project delivery and continuous improvement initiatives across the team.
• Stakeholder Management: Represent the design team in high-profile and cross-departmental discussions, translating business and user needs into actionable workflows.

Creative Strategy & Vision

• Oversee Creative Direction: Lead the day-to-day quality and execution of all creative assets, ensuring they meet the highest standards of craft and attention to detail.
• Brand Evolution: Implement and monitor creative platforms and design systems that advance the HCM voice across digital, social, and experiential verticals.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with Account Managers, Editors, Event Leads and Sales leads to develop actionable insights and scalable creative recommendations that align with company and client goals.
• Innovation: Evaluate new formats, technologies, and workflows to unlock growth and scale production efficiency. Exploration and interest in integrating AI within our day-to-day design tools.

Execution & Craft

• Hands-on Design: Lead by example by creating high-quality graphics, motion assets, and visual concepts for digital, social, newsletters, experiential, and more.
• Creative Ideation: Initiate regular story- and project-specific visual brainstorms with art and editorial teams.
• Process Development: Maintain materials for design processes and product education to ensure team-wide alignment.

• Experience: 8+ years of professional design experience across multiple disciplines (digital, social, experiential, and sales/revenue), with at least 3+ years in a leadership or people management role.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Marketing, Media, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
• Technical Mastery: Advanced proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) and modern project management platforms
• Canva, Asana and Ceros experience are a nice to have
• Strategic Execution: A proven ability to tie pioneering creative work to tangible business results and user motivations.
• Adaptability: Exceptional organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple deadlines and pivot as priorities shift.
• Leadership Mindset: Naturally curious and proactive, with a high standard for quality and a portfolio that showcases both high-level direction and personal execution.

Salary Range: $120-125k + Bonus Eligible

Benefits & Perks:

• Eligibility for performance bonuses
• Choice among six health insurance plans
• Dental and vision insurance
• 401 (k) retirement savings plan with company matching
• Flexible PTO and work remotely
• Extremely generous company holiday policy, with 22 + paid holidays, including 2 floating holidays for 2026
• Parent-friendly culture, including 15 full weeks of parental leave plus flexible return-to-work
• Summer Fridays
• FSA and HSA offered
• Life insurance
• Optional short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Free One Medical membership offering same-day primary care over video or in person
• Free Health Advocate services to help navigate the healthcare system
• TalkSpace and ClassPass Benefits

Location: Remote, within the United States

We welcome applications from all qualified candidates who are eligible to work in the United States. Please note, however, that we are unable to sponsor visas at this time. All information will be held in strict confidence and will adhere to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines.

Her Campus Media is the ultimate community-powered Gen Z media and marketing ecosystem, with a portfolio of the largest and most-loved Gen Z media brands and creator communities: Her Campus, Spoon University, College Fashionista, InfluenceHer Collective, Campus Trendsetters, Zfluence, HC Athletic Club, and Generation Hired. Through our community of 100,000+ members, footprint across 2,300+ colleges, and social reach of well over 1.3+ billion, we're unlocking opportunities for the next generation while serving as the one-stop-shop Gen Z marketing partner for the world's leading brands, who come to us to ensure their Gen Z relevancy and power award-winning end-to-end Gen Z marketing strategies and campaigns.

About our team: Her Campus Media is made up of passionate, entrepreneurial, ambitious doers who are fired up about cultivating the next generation of leaders and change makers. We are a small (~100 employees) but mighty team of individuals, committed to building a dynamic, inclusive organization where we want to work. Visit our Careers page to learn more about our culture and what makes us tick at hercampusmedia.com/careers!