Freelance Visual Development Artist Jobs in Virginia

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

Sway Creative Labs is looking for a meticulous, systems-minded Production Artist to carry campaign creative from approved concept to every file that ships.

This role exists because volume is where campaigns break. A single integrated launch can mean dozens of display sizes, multiple video cutdowns, localized variants, print specs from four different vendors, and a set of social formats that all have to look intentional rather than resized. We want someone who treats that work as craft, builds systems so it scales, and catches the errors before a client does.

If you think in components, tokens, and naming conventions, this is your role.

This is hands-on, in-the-trenches work, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is also work that nobody is standing over. You will be handed a rollout and trusted to bring it back finished and correct. We are looking for someone hungry, self-sufficient, and interested in building a system rather than clearing a queue.

What You'll Own

Campaign Production at Scale

• Build out full display advertising sets from approved master designs across all required sizes and platform specs
• Adapt campaign creative across channels: web, social, email, print, out-of-home, and video end frames
• Produce localized and market-specific variants while maintaining absolute consistency with the master
• Version, name, and archive files to convention so any team member can find the right asset without asking

Design Systems & Templates

• Build and maintain reusable Figma component libraries, variables, and design tokens rather than one-off artboards
• Convert existing hardcoded artifacts into true component-driven template systems
• Maintain brand asset libraries and style documentation across our client roster
• Partner with developers on handoff: specs, exports, redlines, and asset packaging that does not require follow-up

Print & Digital Prep

• Produce print-ready files across formats with full command of bleeds, trim, color spaces, imposition, and vendor specifications
• Preflight and QA every file that leaves the building; you are the last set of eyes
• Prepare and optimize digital assets to spec, including file weight, format, and accessibility requirements

Creative Support

• Work from Art Director and Creative Director direction with accuracy and speed, raising questions early rather than guessing
• Contribute to concept development and offer better executions when you see one
• Provide accurate time estimates for assignments and consistently meet them

AI & Workflow Automation

• Use AI-assisted tooling where it genuinely saves time: generative fill and extend, background removal, upscaling, retouching, rotoscoping, transcription and captioning, and batch operations
• Write prompts precisely enough to get usable output instead of something that needs to be redone by hand
• Hold the quality line. AI output that is close enough is not close enough; you are the person who decides what ships
• Bring new tools and techniques back to the team rather than keeping the shortcut to yourself

What We're Looking For

Core Qualifications

• 2–4+ years of production design experience, agency setting strongly preferred
• Deep proficiency in Figma, specifically components, variants, auto-layout, and variables/tokens
• Strong command of Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
• Thorough understanding of print production processes, specifications, and vendor requirements
• Solid design fundamentals: typography, color theory, composition, and visual hierarchy
• Exceptional attention to detail and a very low error rate on high-volume, detail-heavy work
• Strong organizational and file management discipline
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted creative tooling and the ability to construct a specific, well-framed prompt. We are less interested in which tools you have used than in whether you instinctively reach for them and can tell good output from output that only looks good at a glance
• Ability to handle multiple concurrent assignments and communicate proactively on capacity

Additional Assets

• Motion and animation capability in After Effects, including templating and versioning video units
• Working knowledge of HTML and CSS sufficient to communicate effectively with developers
• Familiarity with version control concepts and shared source-of-truth workflows
• Experience with retouching, photo compositing, or color correction
• Background on healthcare, tourism, food/beverage, legal, or CPG accounts

What Success Looks Like

By the end of your first year, campaign rollouts will stop being a bottleneck. The systems you build will let the next campaign be produced faster than the last one. Art Directors will design knowing you will translate their intent correctly at every size, and producers will stop building QA buffers into schedules for work you touch.

Where This Goes

Production artist is a starting point here, not a terminal title. Depending on where your strengths land, the path forward runs toward Designer and Art Director, toward motion and video, or toward owning our design systems and production infrastructure outright. We will tell you honestly which one we think you are built for, and we will give you the work that gets you there.

Why Sway Creative Labs

Sway is an independent agency where craft is noticed. Production artists here are not siloed at the end of the process. You will sit close to the creative team, have visibility into why the work is what it is, and have a real path toward design and art direction if that is where you want to go. We are also actively rebuilding our template and component systems, so you will have the chance to shape how the agency produces work rather than inherit someone else's structure.

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: $50,000 – $62,000