Associate Creative Director Jobs in Portland, OR

Description

Premier Press is one of the largest creative production companies on the West Coast, working with some of the most recognizable brands from around the world. If you're someone who's a self-starter, detail oriented and motivated to learn, this could be a great opportunity to work at an exciting and growing company. Visit our website to see our great work! http://www.premierpress.com

Our Mission: Bring order to the chaos of creative production and distribution, making it easy to bring your brand to life.

Our Vision: Create a world free from dull marketing.

Our Values:

Go Beyond

Discover New Ways & Ideas

Respect Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Community

Deliver the Best Client Experience

Job Title: Creative Director

Classification: Full-Time, Exempt

Salary: DOE

Reports to: VP of Sales

Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8am- 5pm

Location: In-Office (no remote), 5000 N Basin Ave., Portland, OR 97217 

Why Premier?

You'll join a team of talented designers, production artists, and creative professionals who love what they do and take pride in creating exceptional work.
 

We're looking for a leader who will champion their ideas, represent their work with confidence, and help them reach even greater heights. This is a full-time, on-site leadership role where you'll collaborate daily with your Creative team, Sales, Project Management, and Production to bring ideas to life.
 

If you're excited by the opportunity to lead an outstanding team, collaborate with ambitious clients, and create work that moves seamlessly from concept to reality, we'd love to meet you.

General Summary: Build the Work. Champion the Team. Shape What's Next.

We're looking for a Creative Director who is hands-on and excited to lead an established, highly talented creative team. This role is about elevating great work, owning the creative process, developing people, strengthening creative operations, and becoming the voice of creativity for our clients as we shape Premier's next chapter of growth.

Who you Are:

You're a creative leader who enjoys building relationships as much as building brands. You know how to inspire talented people, earn client trust, and transform ideas into premium packaging, influencer kits, retail displays, and brand experiences. You're curious, collaborative, and energized by presenting concepts to clients while partnering with Account Directors, Project Managers and Production to bring innovative ideas to life. You stay on top of design trends, understand how packaging, branded merchandise, retail, and print work together to support a product launch, and bring fresh, inspiring ideas to every client engagement.

Your portfolio demonstrates hands-on experience with packaging and creative production projects from concept through execution. You understand the creative and technical aspects of structural packaging, print production, and print manufacturing, and can confidently present creative production solutions to agencies and client-side teams.
 

Experience with premium packaging, branded merchandise, retail environments, and environmental graphics is highly valued.

What You'll Do:

As Creative Director, you'll sit at the intersection of Creative, Sales, and Production, bringing people together to create exceptional packaging, print, and brand experiences.

• Lead, mentor, and inspire an experienced creative team across packaging, print, and production, including conducting annual performance reviews while ensuring the Creative Studio remains highly utilized, efficient, and profitable.
• Own the Creative Studio workflow by helping manage priorities, resources, processes, and team development to ensure creativity moves efficiently from concept through production.
• Serve as the creative voice for clients, presenting packaging concepts, material recommendations, and presentation decks with confidence and clarity.
• Partner with Sales to develop packaging, print, and branded merchandise concepts, win new business, and build lasting relationships with agencies and client-side stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Account Directors, Project Managers, Production, and manufacturing teams to ensure exceptional execution from concept through delivery.
• Lead within a highly integrated creative production environment where design decisions, manufacturing expertise, timelines, materials, and execution come together to create exceptional client experiences.
• Drive creative strategy across premium packaging, branded merchandise, retail programs, print, and integrated marketing campaigns.
• Provide creative leadership on concepts, dielines, substrates, materials, print production, and finishing techniques, while directing the team to develop production-ready solutions. 
• Foster a culture of collaboration, curiosity, innovation, and continuous growth.
• Other duties. Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice. 

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job. 

Supervisory Responsibility: Creative Team 

Requirements

Essential Functions:

• 7+ years of creative experience, including leadership responsibilities.
• Experience leading creative operations, including resource planning, workflow management, team development, and building scalable creative processes.
• Strong portfolio showcasing packaging, branded merchandise, influencer campaigns, brand activations, and structural packaging concepts.
• Experience developing and presenting client pitch decks, creative production solutions, and strategic concepts.
• Working knowledge of structural packaging, dielines, printing techniques, substrates, materials, and manufacturing processes, with the ability to confidently recommend solutions in client meetings.
• Experience collaborating with Project Managers, Production, and Sales to develop production-ready creative solutions.
• Expert knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Advanced proficiency with Mac and Windows operating systems.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, project leadership, and team management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Branded merchandise and promotional products
• Motion graphics or digital design
• AI-assisted creative workflows
• Photography, art direction, or 3D visualization

Additional Details 

Work Environment: This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, and photocopiers. 

Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to stand and sit; walk; use hands and fingers, handle or feel; reach with hands and arms; and push carts. The employee is occasionally required to stoop or kneel. The employee must frequently lift and move up to 5 pounds and occasionally lift and move objects up to 20 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.

Alcohol and Drug-Free Policy: We are an alcohol and drug-free workplace. Offers are contingent on the successful completion of background checks and drug screenings.  (While we prohibit impairment on the job, our policy does not restrict lawful, off-duty marijuana use.)

EEO: Premier Press provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any time without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.