Freelance Stop Motion Animation Jobs in Virginia

Location: Remote-first with occasional in-person collaboration in Norfolk, VA. We're prioritizing candidates who live within ~90 miles of Norfolk (Hampton Roads and the surrounding region).

Sway Creative Labs is looking for a systems-minded Designer who can hold a concept and scale it - someone as comfortable setting the look of a campaign as building the Figma system that produces a hundred on-brand versions of it without losing the plot.

This is a design role built for how work actually gets made now: high-volume, multi-channel, and social-first. A single launch can mean a full display network across every standard size, a social system that flexes to every platform, localized variants, and end frames - all of which have to feel designed, not resized. We want someone who treats scale as a design problem, builds templates and component systems in Figma to solve it, and reaches for Claude and AI tooling by default to move faster without dropping the quality bar.

This is hands-on, in-the-trenches work at an independent shop. There is no production layer beneath you to hand the "boring" versions to - you design the system that makes the boring versions fast. In return you get real ownership of how our work looks and how it gets built, direct access to the people who decide, and a genuine hand in shaping our design and production infrastructure.

We are looking for range over specialization: a designer with a real eye and a point of view, fluency in how social actually works, and the technical chops to build systems that scale. Video and animation are a plus, not a requirement.

What You'll Own

Design & Art Direction

• Set and execute the visual direction for campaigns across digital, social, display, print, and out-of-home
• Design social-native creative built for each platform's format and pace, not adapted from a campaign master
• Bring a point of view to concept development and push for the better execution when you see one

Templated Production Systems at Scale

• Build large, inventory-style creative systems: full display unit sets, social unit systems, and localized or market-specific variants
• Build and maintain reusable Figma component libraries, variants, auto-layout, and variables/tokens rather than one-off artboards
• Turn approved concepts into template systems any team member can run without breaking the design
• Version, name, and organize files to convention so the right asset is always findable

AI-Accelerated Design

• Use Claude and AI-assisted tooling as a core part of your workflow: generating and populating variants, drafting layout and copy options, automating repetitive build steps, and running QA passes
• Write prompts specific enough to get usable output, and hold the quality line - AI output that only looks good at a glance does not ship
• Bring new tools and techniques back to the team rather than keeping the shortcut to yourself

Social & Channel Fluency

• Design for Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and emerging formats with an eye for what actually performs
• Work at social speed when a moment is live, and to campaign standards when it counts

Motion & Video (a plus, not required)

• Templating and versioning motion and social video units in After Effects, if you have it

What We're Looking For

Core Qualifications

• 3+ years of design experience, agency setting preferred, with a portfolio spanning both original concept work and high-volume production
• Deep proficiency in Figma: components, variants, auto-layout, and variables/tokens - you build systems, not artboards
• Strong command of Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
• Demonstrated fluency designing social-native creative across platforms
• Hands-on use of Claude and/or other AI tooling to build or scale design work - you reach for it by default and can tell good output from output that only looks good at a glance
• Solid design fundamentals: typography, color, composition, and visual hierarchy
• Ability to produce at volume without a drop in quality, with strong file and version discipline

Additional Assets

• Motion and animation capability in After Effects, including templating video units
• Working knowledge of HTML and CSS sufficient to communicate effectively with developers
• Understanding of print production specifications and vendor requirements
• Familiarity with digital accessibility standards (WCAG / ADA Level AA)
• Background on healthcare, tourism, food/beverage, legal, or CPG accounts

What Success Looks Like

By the end of your first year, campaign rollouts stop being a bottleneck and start being a system: the second launch is faster than the first because you built the templates that make it so. Our social creative looks designed, not dashed off. And AI is quietly woven through your process in ways that make the whole team faster, not just you.

Where This Goes

This role sits at the center of how Sway makes work, which means it can grow in more than one direction - toward art direction and creative leadership, toward owning our design systems and production infrastructure outright, or toward defining how AI reshapes our creative pipeline. We are small enough that the person who does this well defines the job rather than inherits it.

Why Sway Creative Labs

Sway is an independent agency where craft is noticed and your work is seen by hands-on leadership. You will not be siloed. You will sit close to producers, art directors, and our video team on the same accounts, with real productions, real budgets, and real brands - and a real hand in rebuilding the systems that produce our work.

What We Offer

• Health Plan: Three Optima Health Plan options; Sway covers 80% of employee premiums and 50% of dependent premiums
• Dental Insurance: Sway pays 100% of employee's United Concordia Dental Plan
• 401(k): 1:1 match on the first 3% of pay; 50% match on the following 2%
• 15 Paid Vacation Days, resetting at your start date with up to a 5-day negative balance available
• 17 Paid Holidays, including your birthday, the Monday after the Super Bowl, Juneteenth, and the full week between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day
• Two-Hour Windows: Leave windows at the start (9-11am) and end (3-5pm) of the workday for personal appointments, not counted against PTO
• Remote Work Affordance: 100% remote with occasional pre-scheduled in-person meetings and on-set requirements
• Year-end performance bonus eligibility; additional bonuses available based on individual and company performance
• Upskilling: 100% reimbursement for at least one approved course, workshop, or conference annually

Salary: $60,000 - $75,000