Position Details
Title: Sr. Art Director
Type: Job
Class: Full-time
Date: 8/5/2025
Region: Chicago Illinois
City, State: Chicago, IL
Summary:
At MERGE, we strive to create a superior work experience where talented and ambitious people grow. An experience that encourages people to think higher and feel deeper. An experience where people engage their minds and hearts to do the best work of their careers.
Welcome to Merge, where we weave storytelling through technology. We are a creative and technology agency, uniting people and brands in the tech, health and wellness spaces. You’ll help grow our culture of agility, ability, and humility, where everyone is expected to bring world class talent, embrace lifelong learning, and show up every day with positive energy and respect for all.
As an Art Director at Merge, you’ll be on a multidisciplinary team of creatives, spanning conceptual thinking, art direction, graphic design, experience design, digital campaigns and studio. You will develop, explore, and present concepts that win over clients, win awards, and generate social buzz and press. You’ll experiment, grow, and deliver on-strategy creative work that breaks through the noisy media landscape and connects on a human level.
Responsibilities:
- Bring your conceptual thinking, geared towards new ideas and new tools, embracing all kinds of brand problem-solving.
- Work with existing client brand toolkits as well as with fostering net new ideas and business solutions.
- Ideate and collaborate with your writer partner to make each other better, and build on each other’s ideas, and create finished work that shines.
- Effectively present your ideas and express why your creative work will engage the target audience and pays off our strategy.
- Work well in B2C + B2B, pushing for the new and the next, as well as executing more prescriptive workflows.
- Be a master of image creation. You’ll bring a strong, current pov to brand video and photo shoots, a discerning eye for stock, and understand the growing capabilities of AI image creation tools.
- Be comfortable using data to help drive creative vision, execution and decision making
- Work across many channels and deliverables (social, OOH, audio, digital, email, collateral/sales enablement, video, in-store experience).
- Work well with video production, motion design, and studio execution.
- Develop a thorough knowledge of brand goals, positioning, market and competitors.
- Remain current on industry trends and technology, as well as social content trends and culture shifts that keep our work modern and relevant.
Requirements:
- 5-7 years art direction experience in an advertising agency or creative department.
- Bachelor's degree in design, graphic design, or a related field and/or equivalent work experience
- Ability to think conceptually and strategically.
- Exceptional art direction and design skills, emphasizing versatility and adaptability.
- Proficient in a suite of creation tools, including InDesign, Adobe Creative Suite & Google Workspace
- An online portfolio showcasing your expertise
- Experience in creative experimentation and testing is a plus
Compensation & Benefits:
At MERGE, we’re committed to fostering an environment where our team members can thrive in both their careers and personal lives, ensuring they feel supported and empowered to succeed.
MERGE believes in transparency and equity. In accordance with state regulations, we’re proud to include salary ranges in our job postings to ensure fair compensation practices.
The salary range for this role is $78,000 - $93,000, based on the individual’s skills, experience, qualifications, location, and other relevant factors. The salary pay range is subject to change and may be modified at any time.
MERGE is proud to invest in benefits that include meaningful Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, 401K, Lifestyle Spending Account, Employer Paid Life & Disability Insurance, Flexible Time off & Holidays plus many other benefits and rewards.
Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the United States.
And here’s how we live our values at MERGE:
- Ability. Mastering our craft
- Agility. Delivering with a growth mindset
- Humility. Collaborating for shared success
MERGE is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
