Associate Creative Director – Information Architect in Chicago, IL
What does it mean to be the largest independent interactive agency in the world? Besides everything you’d expect – award-winning creative, genius marketing, technology prowess - it means people come to Sapient because they share an all-embracing desire to do things differently. To never feel like it’s an assembly line. To do groundbreaking work on a daily basis. That’s why Sapient Interactive is powered by some of the most original, ambitious interactive professionals you’re likely to meet. It’s an ideal environment for the entrepreneurially minded. Sound like you? Then we should probably talk.
Job Title
Associate Creative Director (Information Architecture focus)
Job Summary
Associate Creative Directors at Sapient are responsible for leading, overseeing, and defining best practices for the navigation, organization, interaction design, and business/user process engineering for leading-edge Web solutions, software, and mobile devices/applications. You will play an active role in leading creative teams and in shaping new opportunities for Sapient —be it expanding current client relationships or forging new ones. An Associate Creative Director must have a deep understanding of user-centered research, design, front-end development, content strategy, and brand strategy to lead multi-disciplinary teams in the development and production of quality creative solutions that meet client’s business objectives and goals.
Primary Responsibilities
Drive, oversee, and provide thought leadership in the assessment of existing sites/properties for usefulness, usability, visual design, content, and branding.
Lead participatory design/user testing activities, as well as behavioral in-context and ethnographic research events across accounts.
Develop and maintain relationships with key client stakeholders; manage client involvement in research.
Build visually compelling frameworks that simply convey complex conceptual relationships.
Identify opportunities to create business value and improve the user experience (based on user research); organize opportunities into visually compelling matrices or maps.
Lead participatory requirements gathering activities, including the analysis and synthesis of requirements definition; present feature lists and requirements documents to senior clients.
Lead stakeholder interviews; present findings to large client groups in workshop settings; facilitate conversations to ensure stakeholder alignment.
Define best practices and standards related to persona development/behavioural segmentation; coach teams to align personas/segmentation with client/project objectives.
Oversee the development of user scenarios and ensure that they are derived appropriately from behavioral segments/user profiles; ensure that scenarios respond to key user needs and illustrate key business opportunities.
Drive the development of frameworks that describe key aspects of a proposed experience, and how it reconciles business and user needs; execute top-level deliverables based on user-centered design techniques.
Lead the creation of visually compelling representations of the solution's high-level interaction, navigation, and organization design (i.e., concept models).
Oversee the development of organizational models, affinity maps, sitemaps, process/screen flows, and wireframes; present deliverables to senior clients.
Estimate, plan, and lead all creative work (across all sub domains, including Visual Design, Information Architecture, Content Strategy, and Interactive Development) in the development of a quality solution for small-to-medium size projects.
Execute and manage creative aspects of sales pursuits, including: shaping and responding to opportunities, proposal creation, and orals presentations.
Job Requirements*
Bachelor's degree required in design-related discipline: Interaction, Information or Interface design;
Human-Computer Interaction; Design Planning; Graphic Design; Communications.
8+ years of industry experience, agency experience a plus.
Solid verbal communication skills, with experience presenting to all levels of clients and co-workers.
Knowledge of direct marketing, online advertising, and web experiences, with proven conceptual
and design abilities.
Candidates must be well-versed in user-centered design methods and techniques.
Must possess a deep understanding in related creative tracks: design, interactive development, copywriting and content strategy.
Proficient to expert in: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Visio, Microsoft Office.
Must have been in a client-facing role and have project experience in working with teams on large scale, long-term projects.
Excellent analytical and process-oriented skills.
Excellent writing skills.
Ability to gracefully handle multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
Frequent travel may be required.
About Sapient
Sapient, a global services firm, operates two groups—Sapient Interactive and Sapient Consulting—that help clients compete, evolve and grow in an increasingly complex marketplace. Sapient Interactive provides brand and marketing strategy, award-winning creative work, web design and development and emerging media expertise. Sapient Consulting provides business and IT strategy, process and systems design, package implementation and custom development, as well as outsourcing services such as testing, maintenance and support.
Sapient’s passion for client success—evidenced by its ability to foster collaboration, drive innovation and solve challenging problems—is the subject of case studies on leadership and organizational behavior used by MBA students at both Harvard and Yale. Leading clients, including BP, Essent Energie, Hilton International, Janus, Sony Electronics and Verizon, rely on the company’s unique approach to drive growth and market momentum. Headquartered in Boston, Sapient operates across North America, Europe and India. For more information, please visit .
*Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this role, which include hearing, speaking, typing and occasionally moving and/or lifting up to 15 pounds.
Sapient is a registered service mark of Sapient Corporation.
Keywords: information architect; user experience, interaction designer, art director, interactive designer, marketing manager, associate creative director, creative director
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