Art Director - Web jobs in District of Columbia

Taoti is looking for a full time, Art Director / Sr. Designer who leans illustrative and has extensive experience with web, digital, interactive, and motion graphics/animation.

About the Job...

The title kinda says it all.  We're looking for a top notch designer that knows how to crank out beautiful work effectively and efficiently.  Someone who understands how to translate business objectives into design. Someone who know how to focus their time the things that count (like calls-to-action) versus the things that are just there to look pretty.  Someone who believes that content and design are inseparably intertwined.  And while we do have dedicated UX people, we want a designer that can't help but be a little bit of a UX person as well.  Because like content, design and UX are also pretty interdependent.

Job and Application Logistics 

Before we get any further, please know that we're looking for a full time, in-house, W2 employee--not a freelancer/contractor (If you found this job ad anywhere other than taoti.com and it said that this role was remote, we're sorry, it's not.  But we can't control whatever job-scraping site does with our job ad.)  Like most of our team, you'll be expected to be in our office at least three days per week (more is better.)  So we need you to live within no more than a 40 minute daily commute of the office.  More than that, and we don't want to be responsible for the the soul-sucking nature of your commute.  (You say you're okay with it now, but when the honeymoon period wears off, you'll resent having to come in.  And we want people who want to come into an office and don't just do to out of pure obligation.)  Note that while we're open to you relocating for the gig, we unfortunately cannot offer any sort of relocation assistance or 'signing bonus.'  Our need is immediate, so we hope to make this hire by the first week or two of April 2024.  Sooner if possible.  All legit applications will hear back from us one way or another.

The Kind of Designer we're Looking For...

You already know what an art director does, so we'll spare you the bulleted list of the obvious duties.  Instead, let's talk about the type of work that you'll typically do.  First, understand that Taoti is a full-service creative / marketing agency.  We do a little bit of everything.  We grew up as a web shop, so these days, about half of our business is still redesigning websites for national non-profits, medium/large-sized businesses, and a fair amount of government work (both at the Federal and local levels.  DC itself is one of our largest clients, as we do work for DC.gov, DC Libraires, DC Public Charter Schools, DC Water, Events DC, and we're agency of record for DC Lottery.  Anything you see with a lottery logo on it--from scratchers to TV commercials--comes out of our shop.  So you'll have the opportunity get your hands dirty with just about all aspects of creative work.  Web design. Print. Advertising. Media. Branding. Identity. Video.  Even live event and production, as we've recently spun up a new division leveraging our very own venue: www.The507Events.com.  The list goes on.  Here are some specific things that the guy you would be replacing did for us:

• A custom illustration and web animation: https://cyber.org/
• A sizzle video to introduce a new website: here 
• An explainer video (this is all original illustration/animation): https://youtu.be/tbEBQsOHm7g?si=hy3cYmxPKPAD3uCC 
• And of course, great looking web design: https://geothermal.org/ 

We obviously have a team of creatives, and while everyone can do more than one thing, people tend to have their own area of particular passion and expertise.  For this role we are looking for someone who's particular area of passion and expertise falls squarely in the world of web/interactive design. That doesn't mean we'll never need you to work on some branding work or maybe even help with some TV commercial production.  But what we really need is someone who can take an old, boring, ineffective website and reimagine it in a way that makes not just beautiful, but effective. We've learned over the years that effective websites usually have more to do with what they say and how they say it as opposed to how they look (though the visual layer is all part of the UX, of course.)  So we're looking for a designer that can really get into the content and brand and figure out how to turn that into visual design.  We want someone well-versed in interactive components and motion graphics.  Because movement generally gets more attention and engagement that non-movement, so it just stands to reason that adding some motion to whatever we're doing tends to increase the effectiveness.  (Most of the time.)

Let's Talk Tools...

Your go-to tools are probably the likes of Illustrator, Photoshop, Aftereffects, etc.  That's great.  But we are leaning heavily into new tools that we're finding increase efficiency and give more control to designers.  We used to wireframe everything out on a white board, lay it out in XD, paint it in in Photoshop, and then pass it over to the dev team to turn into a website (usually in WordPress or Drupal.)  But it's a brave new world with some brave new tools.  There's this UX library called Relume that let's you point and click your way to wire frames.  Push a button, and now it's in Figma for you to hone and polish and design.  Push another button, and it practically imports itself into Webflow in a way that lets you--the designer--realize your own designs as fully-functional websites without writing a lick of code.  No more having to rely on a dev to interpret your intentions or add in those little microinteractions or details that elevate your work.  Of course, that's a bit oversimplified, but you get the gist of it.  New tools are changing the way we do things in a way that lets us save a bunch of production time so that our time (and client budgets) can be spent on the parts that count instead of the laborious production work of yesteryear.  And as you might imagine from that statement, Taoti is all in on AI tools.  If you're not already using AI in a meaningful way to do your job, you're already behind the 8 ball.  Playing around and dabbling with it isn't enough at this point.  It's time to put that stuff into production!  (Insider application tip: tell us how you're using AI in a real way!)

(Note: If you don't have experience with Relume and Webflow and such, don't worry.  That's not a deal breaker.  We can teach you, as it's not that difficult.  That's the beauty of it.  But if you apply and end up getting an interview, it would be good for you to have at least read up on this stuff so that we can have an intelligent discussion about it.  And if you DO have this sort of specific experience, you'll definitely want to play that up in your application!!)

What Else Are You Looking For?

Obviously, we want to hear about your experience, and of course, your portfolio is probably the most important part of your application.  This is a senior role, and your body of work should pretty much speak for itself.  But beyond just having the skills, we're looking for a high-energy individual that will bring a spark to the team.  Someone who is a natural leader (and understands the difference between leadership and management) and can inspire and support both up and down the chain of command within the team.  Someone who is proactive and comes to the table with ideas and suggestions for better ways to do things. Someone who is not afraid to speak his/her mind and have the confidence of conviction when it counts.  Someone who is fun to work with, passionate, hard-working, efficient, and who will contribute to--as opposed to merely consume--our agency culture.

Speaking of the Culture...

“Fun but focused,” as one Taotian put it, is a great way to sum up our culture.  We’re a fun and casual shop.  The kind of place where you can wear whatever, come and go as you please, bring your dog to work, and have autonomy over your own day for the most part.  We have the obligatory creative agency office toys and games.  We even a company boat just a short walk from the office that we like to take afternoon cruises on from time to time.  But we work hard. take the work seriously, and believe deeply in the mission to make meaningful and measurable impacts for our clients.  All the perks and shenanigans and irreverent tone are fun, but to really fit in here, you need to be about the work, and frankly, you need to be good at your job.  B- employees that might be able to keep their head down and make it in a lager operation don't tend to last long here.  We tend to be a group of overachievers who look to not just grind out the work, but really push the agency forward in the process.  Speaking of work, we are not one of those shops that expect their people to be on the clock 50-60 hours a week.  Give us a solid and productive 40 hours, and that's all we ask for.  But those 40 hours have to count.

We also believe in total transparency and open communication across teams and across ranks. Instead of chain-of-command, we want everyone to have and share their own voice.  There are weekly check-ins with your manager (and sometimes, even other managers in other parts of the company.)  Every month or so, the CEO holds ‘CafeClutch’ just so he can hear ideas and feedback directly from the team instead of through the filter of management.  Questioning the status quo and suggesting better ways to do things is not only okay--it's expected.

Want to see what life at Taoti looks like?  Check out our Instagram or ‘about us’ video. 

What about benefits?

• 3 weeks PTO for starters, and that goes up each year you're here. 
• A hybrid work environment. (We accrue telework just like we do PTO so you can save it up if you want to work remotely for larger chunks of time.) 
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance.  (50% for qualifying dependents.)  And we have good insurance.
• Paid family leave for men and women (including PTO plus short and long term disability options.)
• 3% retirement plan matching (plus access to a financial advisor). 
• Mobile phone reimbursement
• You can opt for a company-supplied PC or Mac laptop.  Or if you want to use your own, we’ll reimburse you for it.
• Charitable contribution matching
• Tax-free metro benefits
• A sincere respect for work/life balance
• Money and time off allocated for professional development (also increases with tenure)
• A diverse team hailing from over 15 countries last time we checked
• A very hip/cool/funky/quirky office space on Barracks Row, in the heart of Capitol Hill.  Just 2 blocks from the metro!  
• Of course, the above is a quick list.  See the handbook for all the gory details.

A bit more about Taoti…

Established in 1996, Taoti Creative is an independent, full-service creative agency located on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  We are privately owned and have no corporate overloads.)  We do stuff like web development, social media management, branding, experiential marketing, video, AR/VR, etc.  Our mission is to ‘move the needle’ for our clients.  We leverage technology, creativity, and innovation to generate meaningful and measurable results for our clients—that’s what drives us.  Speaking of clients, they’re about 60% non-profits, 20% commercial, and 20% federal government.  Some of our customers include World Bank, USAID, DC Water, Discovery Education, American Chemical Society, Jane Goodall Foundation, and dozens of ‘National Association of _____________,’ etc.  The best way to talk about our work is to simply show it to you: https://taoti.com/our-work/.  Our full time team of about 70 employees is about 65% in-house and 35% remote.  We hail from over 15 countries.  And for the last four years in a row, we’ve made the Inc5000 list of fastest growing companies in the United States.  There’s of course plenty of additional information on our website.  If you’ve not done so already, be sure to check out our culture video: https://vimeo.com/289302105.  

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion...

Great ideas happen when diverse perspectives come together.  Those perspectives are Taoti’s secret sauce. So building a diverse team and culture where everyone has a voice and is included in the process is not just the right thing to do.  It’s good for business.  We’d love your own perspective to add to our mix!  We're eager for new, diverse voices to join the team and sincerely hope people from every walk of life will apply! 

Next steps…

If you’re qualified and interested, please apply on our website (www.taoti.com/careers.)  Please note that these job ads often get placed onto other websites with their own application systems (we’re looking at you Jooble!)  And some sites (looking at you Indeed!) have made up random salary ranges (Indeed!)  So please be sure you're applying on our website.   

Pretty please, no recruiters.