Associate Creative Director

Company Description

Hyperquake is an independent creative strategy, branding, and experience design marketing agency founded in 1986, with locations in Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, and Brooklyn. We specialize in strategic innovation, branded experiences, and scaling organizations for growth, working with companies ranging from small startups to global enterprises. Hyperquake builds ambitious brands and experiences for those eager to activate a vision.

Position Description

This is a full-time, Cincinnati-based role for an Associate Creative Director on the Hyperquake Brand building team. This position will be dedicated to a single, high-priority client, serving as a creative lead while delivering strong, thoughtful design solutions that support the broader team and Creative Directors. This client is not local to Cincinnati, so light travel will be required to meet the expectations of this position.

The Associate Creative Director will mentor and guide designers while remaining hands-on in the work, operating as a trusted creative partner across the Hyperquake team. In this role, you will help shape and elevate creative output across a range of disciplines, including graphic design, digital and interactive experiences, motion graphics, immersive installations, video and storytelling, campaign development, and conceptual design thinking—ensuring all work meets or exceeds both agency and client expectations.

You will be responsible for translating strategic objectives into clear, actionable creative solutions within a highly collaborative environment. This includes helping establish the conceptual and stylistic direction of projects and ensuring the Creative Directors’ vision is effectively brought to life.

Overview of Role

• Translate strategic business objectives and client insights into conceptually strong, visually compelling ideas that align with brand identity and campaign goals.
• Partner with the Creative Director to shape creative vision and maintain a consistent standard of excellence across all workstreams.
• Lead multi-disciplinary teams—guiding designers, writers, and strategists through concept development, design execution, and delivery.
• Oversee and prioritize multiple creative projects, ensuring deadlines are met and the output meets or exceeds quality expectations.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with marketing, product, and strategy teams to build cohesive, insight-driven brand experiences across channels.
• Present and defend creative work confidently to clients and senior stakeholders, articulating how design decisions ladder up to strategy and measurable outcomes.
• Monitor and elevate brand health, ensuring consistency, quality, and innovation in every expression of the brand.
• Mentor and develop design talent, providing constructive feedback, fostering curiosity, and nurturing a culture of collaboration and creative growth.
• Stay ahead of emerging design and technology trends, bringing new tools, ideas, and platforms (AI, motion, 3D, interactive) into the creative process.
• Contribute to team culture and leadership, helping define best practices, inspire excellence, and build momentum toward the studio’s shared creative vision.

Primary Responsibilities

• Works daily with the Design team and members of the Leadership team (particularly CDs) to ensure all projects meet and/or exceed expectations.
• As an Associate Creative Director, you will help lead, mentor, and cultivate a creative culture rooted in our core values. These responsibilities include:
• Mentoring and advising other Designers and Co-ops and be a sounding board for new hires, needs, and internal processes, etc.
• Potentially help lead a specific part of the business or a specific client to ensure consistency with the brands and businesses we serve
• Collaborating with (and selection of) copywriters, vendors, partners, freelancers, etc.
• Works to achieve the desired fiscal goals of Hyperquake and has the ability to teach, inspire and grow the individuals on an assigned team by understanding how Design impacts the entire business within Hyperquake and for our clients (challenges, client goals, performance, results of our work, etc.).
• Responsible for helping guide our creative execution to ensure it is in alignment with strategic positioning, content is accurate, messaging is appropriate, and clearly meets the project’s objectives (from concept to production/in-market)
• Thinks and communicates at a high level about a client’s business, strategy and consumer/customer behavior.
• Works collaboratively with Creative Directors and team to help formulate and execute ideas to collaboratively determine project scope, budgets, timing, expectations, etc.
• Key involvement with new business prospects in order to attract and retain key clients. 

Experience You will Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Visual Communication, or related field, or equivalent senior-level experience preferred but not required.
• 8–12 years of professional design experience in agency, studio, product, or in-house environments, including experience leading multi-disciplinary creative teams.
• Portfolio demonstrating strategic creative direction across branding, digital ecosystems, campaign platforms, and integrated brand storytelling.
• Expert-level proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) with fluency in Figma, Adobe XD, and AI-assisted concepting tools (Midjourney, DALL·E, ChatGPT, etc.) to accelerate ideation and refinement.
• Deep understanding of design systems, UX/UI principles, typography, color, composition, and responsive design as tools for building brand equity and engagement.
• Experience developing and governing brand systems and scalable design frameworks across multiple touchpoints and markets.
• Working knowledge of motion, video, 3D, and emerging digital experiences (Webflow, Wordpress, immersive/AI-driven content).
• Proven success in leading creative teams and collaborating cross-functionally with strategy, marketing, and production to deliver insight-driven design solutions.
• Ability to translate business goals and consumer insights into compelling creative strategy.
• Skilled at managing complex timelines, budgets, and resource planning across multiple projects and partners.
• Strong presenter and storyteller—able to articulate vision, rationale, and value of design to executive stakeholders and clients.
• Experienced in mentoring, developing, and inspiring creative teams, fostering a culture of innovation, craft, and accountability.
• Confident giving and receiving feedback, with a focus on growth, clarity, and collaboration.
• Strategic thinker with creative intuition and business acumen.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and proactive in solving problems before they arise.
• Deep curiosity about client industries, audience behaviors, and cultural trends.
• Committed to quality, innovation, and consistency in all aspects of design leadership.
• Comfortable leading teams operating in Eastern time zone hours or distributed environments.