Art Director

At Schaefer Advertising, our purpose is simple: Make Life Better.

That purpose guides everything we do. We believe great work starts with great people, strong relationships, and a culture that encourages curiosity, collaboration, and continuous growth.

For more than 30 years, we’ve helped organizations solve business problems through thoughtful strategy, strong creative, and lasting partnerships. We care deeply about our clients, our community, and each other. We believe the best ideas come from teams that trust one another and enjoy working together.

If you’re looking for a place where you can grow as a leader, make a meaningful contribution, and help shape the next chapter of a respected and established independent agency, we’d love to meet you. 

Some agencies treat early-career creatives like extra hands. We don’t.

We’re looking for an Art Director / Designer who wants to contribute to the idea, not just execute someone else’s. Someone who can take a creative brief, understand the strategy, explore different ways into the problem, and help turn the strongest idea into work people notice.

You’ll work closely with our VP/Creative Director, Senior Art Director, Copywriters, Designers, Production Artist, account service, and production teams. You’ll be expected to bring ideas, ask good questions, make the work, take direction, and keep pushing until it is genuinely good.

This is an ideas-and-craft role for someone who wants to get better at both.

This is a highly hands-on role. You will concept, art direct, and design across brand campaigns, integrated advertising, environmental and out-of-home, digital, social, and motion—from early territory exploration through final execution.

You’ll help develop visual ideas, create campaign concepts, build presentations, design across channels, source and curate imagery, prepare production-ready files, and participate in photo and video production.

Some assignments will begin with a blank page and a creative brief. Others will require you to extend an established concept or visual system without losing what made it good. You should be energized by both.

You’ll have access to experienced creative leaders who will challenge you, support your development, and expect you to take increasing ownership of the work as your judgment grows.

Within your first 12 to 18 months, you will have:

• Become a trusted creative partner to our Senior Art Director, VP/Creative Director, Copywriters, Designers, and Production Artist.
• Contributed meaningful concepts and visual thinking to campaigns—not just executions.
• Demonstrated that you can connect your creative choices to the strategy in the brief.
• Taken increasing ownership of assignments from initial exploration through production-ready execution.
• Strengthened your art direction across typography, composition, imagery, photography, video, and channel-specific design.
• Learned to present your work clearly, hear feedback without becoming defensive, and return with a stronger solution.
• Developed the speed, consistency, and judgment required to handle both considered campaign work and fast-turn assignments.
• Brought useful new tools, techniques, or AI-assisted workflows into how we work and shared what you learned with the team.

Responsibilities

• Translate creative strategy and well-built briefs into relevant, distinctive, and executable ideas.
• Develop multiple creative territories before narrowing in on the strongest solution.
• Concept and design campaigns across brand, integrated advertising, out-of-home, digital, social, motion, and environmental work.
• Think beyond a single execution. Consider how an idea can extend across channels, audiences, formats, and moments.
• Develop presentation-ready concepts that clearly connect the creative idea back to the strategy.
• Make thoughtful decisions about typography, composition, color, imagery, hierarchy, and detail.
• Design for the medium: legibility at highway speed, hierarchy in a feed, restraint on a wall, and clarity on a screen.
• Recognize when an idea is not there yet, let go of work that is not solving the problem, and go back in.

• Support and participate in the art direction of original photography and video.
• Help develop shot lists, casting recommendations, wardrobe, locations, styling, and visual references tied to the concept.
• Work with photographers, filmmakers, retouchers, animators, illustrators, and other creative partners.
• Curate imagery with a point of view, including from stock resources and existing client libraries.
• Prepare accurate, organized, production-ready files for print, OOH, digital, social, environmental, and other applications.
• Work closely with production partners to ensure that creative intent carries through final execution.

• Extend brand and campaign systems across channels and formats while maintaining consistency and intent.
• Build clean, organized master files and templates for versioning, localization, and repeated use.
• Follow established brand standards while learning when an assignment calls for thoughtful evolution.
• Help create toolkits and guidelines that make the work easier for others to execute correctly.

• Partner daily with our VP/Creative Director, Senior Art Director, Copywriters, Designers, Production Artist, account service, and production teams.
• Come prepared with ideas, references, questions, and a point of view.
• Receive direction and feedback thoughtfully, then demonstrate that you understood it in the next round.
• Give useful feedback to teammates when invited and contribute to a creative environment where people help one another improve.
• Communicate early when you are stuck, unclear, or at risk of missing a commitment.
• Stay organized, meet deadlines, and take responsibility for the quality and accuracy of your work.
• Have strong opinions about the work without making the work about you.

• Participate in internal and client creative presentations.
• Explain the idea behind your work and connect creative choices back to the strategy.
• Learn to read the room, listen carefully, and respond thoughtfully to questions and feedback.
• Build the confidence to advocate for an idea without becoming defensive or precious about it.
• Become increasingly comfortable presenting creative work directly to clients, from informal working sessions to more formal presentations.

• Be actively curious about AI and emerging creative tools.
• Experiment with new tools and understand where they can expand ideation, improve execution, accelerate exploration, or remove repetitive work.
• Use AI thoughtfully and responsibly without allowing it to flatten the thinking, replace judgment, or make the work feel generic.
• Learn, test, and share what you discover with the creative team.
• Stay current on design, culture, technology, production techniques, and the work being made across the industry.

You are an art director and designer who still loves making the work.

You have ideas, but you also understand that an idea only matters if it can be expressed clearly and executed well. You care about craft, want direct feedback, and are looking for a place where experienced people will push you to become better.

You’re comfortable:

• Starting with a creative brief and exploring more than one solution.
• Working at both ends—the conceptual idea and the details of the execution.
• Being told an idea is not there yet and going back in without losing your energy or professionalism.
• Asking questions when you do not understand the strategy, audience, or assignment.
• Moving between a considered brand campaign and a fast-turn execution in the same week.
• Working independently when the direction is clear and collaboratively when the work benefits from more voices.
• Learning from people with more experience while bringing your own perspective to the room.
• Presenting unfinished thinking, receiving feedback, and making the next round meaningfully better.

You are confident enough to contribute and humble enough to listen. You want credit for good work, but you care more about the team producing the strongest idea.

We care far more about your portfolio and potential than a perfectly linear résumé, but successful candidates will likely have:

• 2+ years of professional experience in an advertising agency, design studio, in-house creative team, or comparable creative environment.
• A portfolio demonstrating conceptual thinking, visual craft, and the ability to develop work across more than one execution or channel.
• Strong foundational skills in typography, composition, color, imagery, and visual hierarchy.
• Fluency in Adobe Creative Cloud and working knowledge of Figma.
• Experience preparing files for print and digital production.
• Some experience with photography, video, motion, 3D, interactive, digital design, or UI/UX is a meaningful plus.
• Curiosity about AI-assisted creative workflows and evidence that you are actively experimenting with emerging tools.
• Experience in attractions, tourism, the arts, real estate, health and life sciences, economic development, hospitality, or destination marketing is helpful but not required.

The best developing creatives combine curiosity with follow-through. They bring ideas, ask good questions, care about the details, and want to understand why something works—not simply whether it was approved.

They can advocate for an idea, hear “no,” take useful feedback, change direction when warranted, and remain a generous, constructive teammate throughout the process.

At Schaefer, craft is a form of respect—for the client, the audience, the idea, and the people you work with.

Creative work is changing, and so is Schaefer.

Technology will continue to change how we make things. AI, automation, and flexible creative teams are becoming part of everyday agency life. We see those tools as ways to spend more time on thinking and craft, not less.

This role offers the opportunity to work beside experienced creative leaders, contribute to meaningful assignments, and develop the conceptual thinking, craft, judgment, and presentation skills required to become a stronger art director.

What will not change is the value of curiosity, good judgment, original thinking, and care for the work.

If that sounds like the kind of career you’re looking for, we’d love to meet you.

This position is based in Fort Worth, Texas. Team members are expected to work in the office at least three days per week.

• 401k with 3% Employer Contribution
• Health, Dental, Disability and Life Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Paid Time Off
• Generous Holiday Schedule
• Dog Friendly Environment
• Office closure between Christmas and New Years
• Paid volunteer time
• Paid parental leave