Director of Brand Design, Articulate
$173.8-260.6k
+ Bonus
Photoshop
Illustrator
Figma
InDesign
Notion
Expert level
Remote from US
SaaS training & development platform
Be an early applicant
SaaS training & development platform
501-1000 employees
B2BEnterpriseInternal toolsContentTrainingLearningSaaS
Be an early applicant
$173.8-260.6k
+ Bonus
Photoshop
Illustrator
Figma
InDesign
Notion
Expert level
Remote from US
501-1000 employees
B2BEnterpriseInternal toolsContentTrainingLearningSaaS
Company mission
To empower people to live better lives.
Role
Who you are
- Our ideal candidate is a highly experienced, strategic design leader with deep experience managing teams of designers in a SaaS or in-house B2B setting
- You’re passionate about building strong cross-functional relationships and fostering a creative culture of collaboration, positivity, innovation, and growth
- As a leader, your proficiency in presenting to executives with confidence and clarity is high
- You’re well-versed in leading multidisciplinary creative teams in close collaboration with marketing to deliver consistent, high-converting design across web, digital, print, motion, social, and event production
- You’re able to lead, inspire, and nurture a growing brand design team, demonstrate deep self-awareness and empathy, and naturally elevate others to do their best work
- 12-15+ years of brand and visual design experience with a deep focus in building in-house brands, shaping creative across a wide range of marketing channels for a high-growth B2B software company or creative agency
- An experienced people leader (7-10+ years in management) with a track record of leading design teams both strategically and supportively, creating an inclusive creative culture of growth, development, and levity
- Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Interaction Design, or related field
- Deep knowledge, passion, and expertise in all aspects of design including systems, layout, typography, illustration, image making, digital and event/brand experience production
- Clear aptitude for connecting a brand to its product and customers, solving for the full customer experience, and thinking strategically with the end-to-end journey in mind
- Strong sense of concept development, strategy, research, and problem-solving in a fast-paced, iterative environment
- Able to distill down complex systems, ideas, and strategies into the key details that align to business needs, achieving executive level buy-in, and building trust and confidence throughout the org
- Clear communicator, verbally and visually; able to give constructive and actionable design feedback to team members
- An expert-level portfolio that shows a high taste level; strong strategic, out-of-box thinking; and meaningful audience impact across a range of project types
- Proficient with a variety of creative tools including Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Notion with ability to make informed technical recommendations
- Avid user of AI tooling across use cases both within creative work and other opportunity areas
What the job involves
- As the Director, Brand Design, you’ll lead the creative and strategic alignment of our multidisciplinary Brand Design team across all verticals, ensuring systems and work align with the business priorities and brand standards, and provide creative direction for the team
- You’ll work closely with the VP of Design, Directors of Messaging and Product Design, and Creative Operations and Marketing teams to build and maintain a strong brand that makes a genuine connection across the full customer experience
- Work directly with executive leadership team on brand strategy, presenting creative work, defending design decisions, and fostering alignment
- Build key frameworks for scale, quality, and cohesion across Brand Design
- Drive creative and strategic alignment of our Brand Design team across all verticals, ensuring systems and work meet business needs and brand standards
- Partner with top design leadership including VP of Design, Messaging Design, and Creative Ops leaders to identify holistic design team challenges, foster visibility and alignment, cultural wins, and team growth opportunities
- Help maintain a customer-centric and innovative culture at Articulate
- Foster alignment across Brand Design with key internal initiatives, consistent operations, manager coaching, prioritization guidance, and fostering efficiency
- Identify key opportunities for strategic collaboration across Brand Design verticals as well as with the greater design and marketing organization
- Nurture clear and frequent communication lines across cross-functional teams to effectively drive project work and new initiatives forward
- Manage, coach, and mentor senior design managers, supporting their growth as strategic leaders and ensuring they are empowered to lead their verticals effectively
- Demonstrate a strong and strategic leadership voice, instilling confidence, mitigating team anxiety, speaking for impact across all audiences, and elevating team morale through clear, impactful communication
- Foster a culture of experimentation, rapid ideation, and comfort with AI tooling in strategic applications for increased velocity and impact across brand creative
- Own the strategic makeup and structure of your team, setting the team up for success with key partners across Design and GTM in accordance with business goals
- Translate business priorities into long-range creative strategies in partnership with Messaging Design, ensuring each strategic area (growth & motion, brand & identity, web) aligns to company goals and evolves cohesively
- Strategically push the evolution of the Articulate brand experience and identity, how it drives business value with clear outcomes, and how it resonates with our core audiences
- Provide focused design feedback or creative direction where work may be missing the strategic mark, falling outside of our brand guidelines, quality bar, or executive vision
- Run design thinking sessions and creative discovery exercises to build awareness, define new creative possibilities, and create team alignment
- Track and communicate team impact, helping design tell its story with clarity and credibility at the executive level
- Oversee execution and output of Brand Design and partner with Messaging Design to deliver holistic creative concepts that align with the strategic brand vision
- Guide creative vision, ensuring a tight connection to marketing goals
- Own Brand Design planning and prioritization with guidance on resourcing, prioritization, and allocation and identifying key risks with key support from Creative Ops
- Continually push our existing brand creative to keep quality high and competitive while keeping consistent with our design systems, or identifying opportunities for systems evolution
- Identify when external creative partners are needed, defining criteria, reviewing portfolios/capabilities, making final selection decisions
- Set a vision and champion a high bar for Brand Design excellence and consistency that inspires experimentation and bold thinking across the organization and establishes Articulate as a design-forward brand
- Foster creative alignment between Design and GTM across key priorities, playing an active role in strategic planning, prioritization, and mapping of new opportunities for maximum business impact
- Partner closely with leadership in Product Design, Messaging Design, and Creative Operations to maintain and evolve our operations for maximum efficiency
- Represent Brand Design in org-wide initiatives, contributing to design organization priorities like hiring, rituals, team health, and craft quality in partnership with other Directors
- Collaborate with key Marketing and Design leaders to shape the evolution of Articulate's brand, voice, and creative strategy as our company and platform evolve
- Nurture clear and frequent communication lines across the wider cross-functional team to effectively drive project work and new initiatives forward with shared buy-in
- Proactively identify opportunities with cross-functional partners for better and more strategic brand outcomes throughout the organization
- Cultivate a strong design culture, fostering collaboration, inclusion, and a shared commitment to quality across the entire Brand org
- Host learning sessions for the team to build camaraderie, increase knowledge, and expand creative expertise
- Help with hiring, partner management and onboarding of new team members
- Demonstrate professional, positive, and proactive communication with peers—model self-awareness and empathy
- Be an advocate for design; educate and enable the team and the wider org to create meaningful brand experiences
Our take
Articulate is a SaaS based training platform for SMBs and Enterprises, aiming to empower anyone – not just learning professionals – to deliver training to a business.
The business was founded in 2002 as a plug-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, and was entirely bootstrapped until a 2021 funding round of $1.5 billion. Since its launch, it has grown significantly - now serving over 100,000 organizations and upwards of 100 million learners customers across the globe, including every single one of the Fortune 100.
The company has invested in aggressive expansion, and is already the most dominant player by far in course-authoring apps. This isin part due to capitalizing on the significant opportunity in targeting businesses that are looking to move from in-person to online-based learning.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Led by a woman
Top investors
4% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (1 round)
Jul 2021
$1.5bn
SERIES A
Total funding: $1.5bn
Company benefits
- Student debt repayment - Get up to $2,400 annually ($200/month) in student loan repayments
- Flexible PTO
- Fully remote (we'll help set up your home office with awesome equipment and technology)
- We offer $100 a month toward well-being
- We offer Fortune 500-level medical, dental, and vision coverage for our employees and their dependents
- We offer a baby bonding benefit of up to 17 weeks paid leave to primary and non-primary caregivers
- We offer all employees up to $3,000 tax-free annually for child care assistance
- Tuition reimbursement - Continue your education in any subject you want. We provide up to $5,250/year for classes at a code school or accredited college
- Transgender benefit - We offer medical coverage for gender-affirming surgery and supplemental procedures, along with paid leave for recovery
- We match up to $500 of employee donations each calendar year to nonprofit organizations
- We offer $4,000 annually to travel to seek legal abortion services
- Contribute to your choice of Fidelity 401k plans. Articulate will also contribute 3% of your salary to your 401k whether you decide to contribute or not
- Give your loved ones peace of mind. We provide life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability benefits to all employees
- We cover 100% of eleven therapy sessions and eleven therapeutic coaching sessions per year with a licensed therapist through the Modern Health platform for each employee and their dependents
- Health savings account (HSA) - We contribute $1000 for family and $500 for individuals annually to help cover co-pays and other medical expenses
- Get coaching in social, physical, financial, and mental well-being. We offer unlimited life-coaching sessions with certified coaches through the Wellness Coach platform
- We value our employees and the important milestones in their lives. We celebrate with cupcakes, Slack shoutouts, and virtual parties
- We support the growth and development of our employees through coaching, internal training, and skills training opportunities
- We offer our employees time off to volunteer in meaningful ways within their communities and beyond
- We offer service sabbaticals to support our employees in doing the work to advance human rights, civil rights, and environmental health
- Cash for Change - Our employee-guided corporate giving program supports organizations advancing human rights, civil rights, and environmental health
Company HQ
NoMad, New York, NY
Leadership
Adam Schwartz
(Founder, CEO & Executive Chair)Founded Articulate in 2002 with a vision to make it easier for the world to learn. Previously served as General Manager for a division of Knowledge Universe.
Lucy Suros
(Director & Vice Chair of the Board)Served as CEO of the company from 2021 to 2023. Previously acted as Marketing Consultant for The Content Bureau and as PR Director for Switzer Communications.
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