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Freelance Associate Creative Director, Art

Calgary

As an Associate Creative Director (Art), you bring strong conceptual thinking and confident visual direction to campaign work. You know how to take an insight and build an idea that holds across formats—especially video. While you understand layout and design fundamentals, your focus is on art direction: shaping how a campaign looks, feels, and moves. Automotive experience is a plus.

You work fluidly with a copy partner, production teams, and account discipline leads. You're able to communicate your vision clearly and guide others to bring it to life—whether that’s through casting, locations, lighting references, or edit flow and timing, music & voiceover direction. You move fast, stay collaborative, and keep the creative sharp.

You Will:

  • Concept and execute creative ideas across video, digital, and print campaigns
  • Partner with your copy counterpart to bring insight-led, channel-smart thinking to life
  • Lead the art direction on integrated campaigns, with a focus on video and storytelling
  • Present work internally and to clients in a clear, visually driven way
  • Collaborate with production partners—ECDs, CDs, directors, editors, animators—to bring work to a high level of polish
  • Move between brand-led and retail-driven projects with confidence
  • Work closely with strategy and account leads to ensure the creative stays on track and on brief
  • Adjust quickly to feedback and shifting priorities
  • Foster a culture of visual excellence, craft, and accountability

You Have:

  • 6+ years of experience in art direction or design
  • A portfolio that shows sharp visual ideas across video and integrated work
  • Confidence in working across a range of mediums—video, digital, print, and OOH
  • A working knowledge of production—from pre-pro to color grade
  • Solid instincts around visual storytelling, branding, and how to direct execution
  • Strong presentation skills and the ability to sell in visual thinking
  • Experience in automotive or other category where brand and retail messaging coexist is a bonus

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer. 

The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com and us.greenhouse-mail.io. We will not use apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts for communicating with you. We will never ask you to send us money, technology, or anything else to work for our company. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please review your local government consumer protections guidance and reach out to them directly.

If U.S. based: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams#avoid
If Canada based: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/finance/consumer-affairs.html
If U.K. based: https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights
If Costa Rica based: https://www.consumo.go.cr/educacion_consumidor/consejos_practicos.aspx 

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DE&I Questionnaire

Voluntary Self-Identification

At Critical Mass, we are dedicated and determined to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities in which we live and work. It is crucial that every team member can thrive and reach their full potential.

With that said, we’d like to know a little more about you. We ask all applicants to fill out the below voluntary self-identification questions in order to evaluate and improve our recruitment and diversity efforts. Answering is completely voluntary and will not affect the outcome of your application.

The data collected may be reviewed by the Critical Mass Talent Acquisition Team, Human Resources, our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion team, and our executives, but they will neither be reviewed by nor disclosed to anyone else. All the information that you share with us pursuant to this survey will be stored on our secure network servers located within Canada and the United States.  We will only retain this information so long as it is necessary for the purpose that we have described here or as may be required by applicable laws. Thereafter, we will either anonymize the information or delete it entirely.  If you elect to complete this survey, and at any point in the future you wish to retract or amend your responses, or otherwise have any questions about your data, you may contact our Talent Acquisition team at accommodations@criticalmass.com.

As set forth in Critical Mass’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Aboriginal Peoples Definition:

Aboriginal Peoples means persons who are defined as: Indians (more commonly referred to as First Nations), Inuit, or Métis.

Members of Visible Minorities Definition:

Members of Visible Minorities means persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color.
Examples:
Black (e.g. African, Caribbean, Other)
Arab (e.g. Middle Eastern, North African, etc.) 
Asian and Southeast Asian (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Thais, etc.) 
West Asian (e.g. Armenian, Iranian, Persian, Egyptian, Turkish, etc.)
Other (e.g. Latin American, Pacific Islander, etc.) 

Persons with Disabilities Definition:

Persons with Disabilities means persons who have a physical or mental impairment or medical condition that substantially limits a major life activity, or if you have a history or record of such an impairment or medical condition.

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