Senior Art Director, Brand

CarMax, the way your career should be! 

About this job

As the Senior Art Director – Brand, you will drive the creative vision and execution of compelling creative that elevates our brand and engages audiences. This role blends strategy, branding, and design expertise to produce high-quality assets across brand channels and stores. This role is ideal for a creative thinker who thrives in a fast-paced environment, can pivot quickly, and brings a strong blend of conceptual and strategic creative skills. Whether designing brand assets, creating brand and/or installation guidelines, or refining brand messaging, you will play a key role in shaping engaging brand assets that resonate with audiences across multiple platforms. Reporting to the Associate Creative Director on the Brand team, you will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, ensuring that creative executions align with strategic objectives and brand guidelines. 

What you will do – Essential Responsibilities 

• Proactively contributes ideas to the practice of Brand Communications (brainstorms, inspiration gathering, identifying appropriate trends, channel-specific approaches, and ways to bring our brand to life). 

• Recognizes opportunities to evolve CarMax's brand. Can articulate rationale to brand stakeholders. 

• Contributes to the development and maintenance of style guides and/or installation guides for respective channels and stores.

• Leads brainstorming sessions to come up with innovative and original ideas for projects. Understands project goals and how deliverables fit within the broader marketing strategy. 

• Leads with innovative thinking and art direction skills in visual design, branding, concept development, motion graphics, and design systems/layouts. Able to confidently navigate how channel needs, performance indicators, and business goals impact the work.

• Understanding of how GenAI impacts planning for campaigns and the ability to identify opportunities. Build brand-appropriate templates that meet creative briefs for the generation of assets and work with teams to facilitate delivery. Proactively invest time in learning AI.

• Advanced proficiency in creative tools. A clear understanding of opportunities and restrictions of the tech and asset types and AI/brand best practices. Researches how tools can be used to enhance the creative development and testing process. Collaborates with the manager to develop a strategy for optimizing creative based on insights gained.

• Captures and documents content/asset recommendations from legal and elsewhere and rationale in an easily shareable/editable format. Follows established processes, tools, and file saving/sharing.

• Contributes to brainstorms, proactively sources inspiration from a wide range of digital sources, effectively using found images, mocked-up imagery, and video to shape and support creative concepts. Refines and customizes ideas, integrating inspiration into original work that fits brand guidelines and platform needs. 

• Promotes projects and initiatives effectively to various levels of the organization, articulating POV by showing creative thought process and rationale. Communicates clearly and effectively, tailoring the message to the audience.

• Builds and maintains strategic relationships across teams, actively engaging with others to align on objectives and contribute to team goals.

• Successfully motivates and leads peers and business partners to embrace high level creative that connects team goals with larger department goals.

• Seeks creative feedback or ideas from partners/team; recognizes when other ideas will better serve the project/user.  

• Thinks critically to balance creativity and execution, making informed decisions independently while managing tight timelines and navigating ambiguity. Able to address issues independently.

• Leads multiple projects independently, effectively managing timelines, deliverables, and team expectations with minimal oversight. 

• Critically evaluates and questions high-level strategic decisions to suggest improvements or enhance the creative direction 

• Proactively embraces change, adjusting quickly to evolving requirements and managing transitions with minimal disruption. 

Qualifications and Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Visual Arts, Digital Media, Advertising, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience in design and art direction.

• 5+ years of experience in art direction, branding or a related creative role. 

• A strong portfolio demonstrating expertise in art direction, identity, brand storytelling, and creative leadership. 

• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, InDesign, Figma is a plus. 

• Experience designing and creating layouts for a variety of print and digital channels. 

• Experience designing and creating brand systems.

• Experience designing and creating motion graphics.  

• Experience creating brand/installation guidelines and working with production vendors.

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate and present concepts effectively to diverse audiences.

• Keen attention to detail and a passion for delivering high-quality, customer-centric work.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, managing multiple projects and deadlines simultaneously. 

• A passion for creative problem-solving and pushing creative boundaries. 

The annual salary for this position is:

May be eligible for bonus and equity.

Benefits:

Except as otherwise required by state law, CarMax Associates are entitled to the following paid sick, vacation, and holiday time.

Associates that are considered full-time hourly or commission/incentive eligible:

• To earn up to 48 hours of sick time per year accrued on a per pay period basis and between 80 hours and 200 hours per year of vacation time after a 90 day waiting period depending on years of continuous service with the Company. 
• For 8 hours of pay for each of a total of 6 paid scheduled holidays per year plus 1 floating holiday.  If such an Associate does work on a scheduled holiday due to business need, they are eligible for Holiday Premium Pay. 

Associates considered full-time salaried are entitled to paid time away with no specified limit as needed for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc. subject to manager approval. 

For more details about benefits, please visit our CarMax Benefits website.

Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.