Executive Thumbnail Designer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Overview: Smosh is seeking a highly skilled, organized, and creatively fearless Design Director to lead the look, feel, and overall visual identity of the Smosh brand across all channels: Smosh, Smosh Pit, Smosh Games, Smosh Cast, and Smosh ALike. This role balances hands-on design work with creative direction and team management. You'll guide a small but mighty design team, oversee everything from thumbnail production to live show branding, and collaborate directly with the executive team to ensure the Smosh universe continues to look as good as it is funny.

This position reports directly to the Senior Director of Marketing.

Core Competencies

• Creative Vision & Innovation - Set and maintain high visual, comedic and cohesive design choices that elevate the Smosh brand across platforms.
• Strong Management & Team Development Skills - Empower a small graphic team through clear communication, collaboration and fostering growth and skill development.
• Lead by Doing - Balance leadership with practical design work, stepping into Illustrator, Photoshop, or motion tools when necessary.
• Collaborative Instinct - Works closely with producers, directors, social, marketing, and post-production teams to ensure visual consistency and impact across all platforms.
• Strategic Vision - Develops creative direction for major events, channel rebrands, and long-term brand initiatives while aligning design output with business goals.
• Cross Functional Leadership - Partners effectively with Production, Marketing, Social, Membership, Live Events, and Commercial teams to align creative output with audience and business goals.

Responsibilities

• Lead & Own Design Creation
  • Branded Materials - Lead creation of pitch decks, marketing assets, and internal presentations that reflect Smosh's unique identity.
  • Merch Design Initiatives - Support the merchandise designer
    on product design for smosh.com merchandise by overseeing workload and development, and stepping in to execute design work when necessary.
  • Creative Concepts - Design and direct concepts for tentpole events, live shows, and channel rebrands, including Smosh Games, Smosh Pit, and SmoshCast.
• Maintain and Evolve Visual Identity - Ensure consistent brand representation across YouTube channels, live shows, merch, and social content.
• Participate in Production Planning - Attend production kickoff and pre-production meetings to proactively identify graphic, branding, thumbnail, and social asset needs before production begins.
• Present and Pitch Creative- Provide clear rationale for design decisions to executives while remaining open to collaboration and comedy-driven input
• Direct & Support the Design Department
  • Manage Senior Graphic Designer, Graphic Designer, and Senior Motion Graphics Designer, ensuring alignment with team goals and brand vision.
  • Conduct performance reviews, provide mentorship, and encourage ongoing skill development.
  • Manage Projects and Workflow. Prioritize, delegate, and oversee all incoming graphic requests while maintaining project timelines.
  • Step in to complete design tasks when workload or deadlines demand hands-on support.
• Develop Design Systems & Workflows - Create scalable templates, toolkits and workflows that improves consistency, efficiency and collaboration across cross functional teams
• Oversee Motion Graphics and VFX - Partner with post-production to fulfill motion graphic requests or delegate to the motion team.
• Collaborate Across Teams - Partner with producers, directors, social, and marketing teams to maintain visual consistency and meet project objectives.
• Oversee and Approve Thumbnails - Lead thumbnail strategy across all channels, partnering with Social and Marketing to optimize packaging, audience engagement, creative testing, and performance.
• Maintain Graphics Library - Ensure all assets are organized and accessible across departments.