Art Director

Description

At RP3, we believe wildly original ideas are the most powerful force in marketing.

The Art Director turns business challenges, audience insights, and cultural tension into clear, ownable ideas that earn attention and move people to act. This is a concept-first role: the work begins with the idea, not the layout.

The ideal candidate is equal parts thinker and maker - someone who can develop campaign platforms, build a distinctive visual world around them, and make those ideas tangible early through persuasive comps, prototypes, and imagery. They pair strong human judgment and craft with emerging technology to explore further, iterate faster, and raise the ambition of the work.

What Success Looks Like

• Consistently generate multiple fresh, unexpected, and strategically grounded creative territories.
• Build campaign platforms that can stretch across channels, not just one-off executions.
• Turn early thinking into persuasive visual narratives, comps, prototypes, and presentations that help teams and clients see the idea.
• Use AI thoughtfully to expand exploration, develop original imagery, and accelerate iteration without sacrificing taste, strategy, or craft.
• Create work that is distinctive, cohesive, feasible to produce, and capable of delivering measurable business impact.
• Elevate the work and the people around it through curiosity, collaboration, and hands-on creative leadership.
  
  

What You'll Do

Create Wildly Original Ideas

• Interrogate the brief, identify the human or cultural insight, and develop several distinct visual and campaign territories before converging on a direction.
• Partner closely with copywriters, strategists, designers, and creative leaders to connect every visual decision to the core idea and client objective.
• Think in integrated campaign systems across paid, owned, earned, social, digital, experiential, OOH, film, and emerging channels.
  
  

Bring Ideas to Life

• Define the visual world for an idea - including art direction, design language, typography, composition, image style, motion behavior, and channel expression.
• Create reference boards, keyframes, storyboards, prototypes, presentation visuals, and high-fidelity comps that make concepts easy to understand and exciting to buy.
• Direct designers, photographers, illustrators, editors, animators, and other production partners from concept through final execution while remaining hands-on when needed.
  
  

Use AI to Explore and Visualize

• Use generative AI and other emerging tools deliberately during concept exploration, visual development, comp creation, storyboarding, and custom image development.
• Write and refine prompts, curate outputs, composite and retouch generated imagery, and maintain consistency in people, products, environments, lighting, and brand expression across a visual system.
• Apply strong judgment to when AI adds value and when another approach is better. Clearly distinguish exploratory comps from production-ready assets and follow client, legal, privacy, licensing, and brand-safety requirements.
• Document effective prompts and workflows so promising approaches can be repeated and improved across the creative team.
  
  

Collaborate, Present, and Deliver

• Present ideas with a clear strategic rationale, respond constructively to feedback, and advocate for the integrity of the concept.
• Partner with account, strategy, media, and production teams to balance ambition with timelines, budgets, and executional realities.
• Manage multiple projects and brands with the adaptability, ownership, and resourcefulness required in a small agency environment. Stay current on culture, design, technology, and media, and share useful discoveries with the team.
  
  

Why RP3?

Here's What We Offer

• Hybrid flexibility - RP3 is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, so if you are DMV-based, that is definitely a bonus — but not a barrier. If you can get here by train, plane, or automobile, you are in the running. We want the right person, wherever they are.
• A culture built on curiosity, kindness, accountability, and wildly original thinking
• Company-paid health, life, short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance
• Employee-paid dental and vision plans
• 401(k) with immediate employer match
• Inclusive, world-class family leave policy
• Generous PTO - including Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Paid Holidays, Personal Time, and Karma Days
• Summer Fridays - we shut down at 2 PM every Friday from Memorial Day to Labor Day
• Voluntary benefits including commuter benefits and pet insurance
  
  

Compensation

Salary Range: 70,000-85,000 Annual DOE

We believe in paying people fairly and transparently. Final compensation will reflect individual experience, qualifications, and internal equity considerations

Equal Opportunity Employer

RP3 is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that reflects the clients and communities we serve. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. Different perspectives make better work.

Requirements

• A portfolio that demonstrates original conceptual campaign thinking, strong visual storytelling, and exceptional craft across multiple channels.
• 3-5 years of experience, ideally in an advertising agency or similarly fast-paced creative environment, meeting tight deadlines.
• The ability to move from strategy and insight to a big idea, then build a cohesive visual system and execute it at a high level.
• Strong art direction, design, typography, composition, image-making, and presentation skills.
• Hands-on fluency with Adobe Creative Suite and experience using generative AI tools for concepting, comps, storyboards, and image development.
• The judgment to curate and refine AI outputs, assess production feasibility, and protect originality, brand integrity, and responsible-use standards.
• A collaborative, low-ego approach; comfort giving and receiving feedback; and the ability to work independently when a lean team needs it.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and a drive to create work that stands apart from the expected.
  
  

The RP3 Difference

We're looking for someone wildly original who can find the idea, imagine the world around it, and make that world visible before it exists.

The best Art Directors at RP3 are conceptually fearless, visually disciplined, and relentlessly curious. They use every tool available to explore more possibilities and communicate ideas with greater clarity, but their taste, judgment, and point of view always lead.

They challenge convention without losing sight of strategy. They understand that speed is valuable only when it produces better thinking. And they create work that drives business results, earns attention, and has the potential to be recognized by clients, consumers, and the creative industry alike.

Position and Hours

This is a full-time position requiring strong leadership, accountability, and adaptability. Occasional flexibility may be required to support agency and client needs.

• This job is not available in CA or NYC. Must be located in Central or Eastern Timezone. Must be located in the US.