Art Director
Job Summary
Job Description
Jam City Puzzle Studio seeks an Art Director to lead the visual style of their mobile games, particularly Cookie Jam. Responsibilities include managing in-house and outsourced art teams, providing artistic direction for 2D and 3D assets, establishing quality benchmarks, and collaborating with leadership on artistic challenges. The role requires concept creation, review of in-game graphics, pipeline creation, and working with marketing for brand consistency. The Art Director will also mentor artists, manage outsourcing, and participate in sprint planning and recruitment.
Must have:
- 9+ years mobile/console game dev experience
- Lead role in completed title
- Unity experience
- Manage art teams & outsourcing
- Artistic vision communication
- Expert in Photoshop & stylized art
Good to have:
- 3D modeling & texturing experience
- UI/UX design expertise
- Animation skills
- Knowledge of game engines & pipelines
13 skills required
Job Details
Jam City Puzzle Studio is looking for an Art Director to join its team focused on delivering high-quality mobile games. This is a unique and exciting opportunity for an experienced, highly creative, collaborative, and motivated individual to help build the next chapter for Cookie Jam, one of Jam City’s top titles. The Art Director will define the visual style for our games and oversee its execution by managing the in-house art team, as well as multiple vendors and outsourcers. They will provide artistic direction, guidance, and feedback on 2D and 3D assets and animation. The Art Director will also establish quality benchmarks, define brand parameters, and find solutions for critical art workflows.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Partner with the leadership team to identify and solve artistic challenges including defining a stylistic vision, establishing and maintaining aesthetic standards, and influencing the technical direction to best support the artistic, design, and product goals.
- Manage and mentor a team of artists, providing feedback and direction to ensure a consistent quality bar and on-time deliverables, as well as individual artist’s growth.
- Establish and maintain an effective outsourcing pipeline to ensure cost effective operations on a regular content cadence.
- Create or direct concepts for all character and environment assets for the game.
- Direct and review in-game HUD (UI), icons, marketing art, and all other in-game graphics.
- Create or direct the 2D/3D rigging and animation pipelines in cooperation with the Tech Art and VFX teams.
- Work with the Game Director and Producers to scope art for new features.
- Create written and visual feedback (redlines, paint-overs) to guide the art team on quality and maintain consistency with the style guide.
- Manage art team deliverables, ensuring they meet the defined objectives.
- Advises leads on individual artist assignments for tasks including scheduling and reviewing art assets.
- Evaluate market trends, emerging technology, and new software tools to ensure that the team is delivering top quality production value and meeting player expectations for in game visuals.
- Work with the marketing team to ensure accurate brand representation.
- Sprint Planning for the art department.
- Play a critical role in the recruiting efforts of the art department.
QUALIFICATIONS
- 9+ years developing mobile or console games with at least one completed title in a lead role.
- Direct Unity experience on one or more projects.
- Ability to clearly communicate the artistic vision to the team and project stakeholders.
- Tremendous artistic talent and a firm understanding of traditional art and design principles.
- Experience with vetting, budgeting and managing art outsourcing projects.
- Expert knowledge of Adobe Photoshop for concept and 2d art production art.
- Expert artistic abilities in stylized art creation for environments, characters, UI, and marketing art.
- A demonstrated understanding of other art fields including 3d modeling and texturing, UI, animation, game engines, and pipelines.
- Strong organizational and asset tracking skills.
- Ability to communicate ideas verbally and visually, providing feedback and discussing creative direction with a constructive and diplomatic approach.
- Takes initiative to solve problems with excellent follow-through.
- A passion for game development of course.
- Must be willing to work PST hours.
CHECK OUT LIFE AS A JAM CITIZEN:
OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUITY, DIVERSITY, & INCLUSION
We believe in creating games that unite people across the world and that showcase our commitment to providing an environment that is both inclusive and diverse for our players and employees. We strive to create a workforce that is reflective of our global player community as we know that we are stronger and better when we play together. To help promote an inclusive culture, we celebrate the visible and invisible diversity of our Jam Citizens through initiatives including Employee Resource Groups, cultural events, trainings, speaker series, and more.
Jam City is an equal opportunity employer. We enthusiastically accept our responsibility to make employment decisions without regard to race, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, ancestry, religion, ethnicity, marital, or domestic partnerships status, disability, genetic information (including the refusal to submit to genetic testing), predisposing genetic characteristics, military status, veteran status, domestic violence victim status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expressions, or any other classification protected by federal, state, and local laws. Our management is committed to following this policy with respect to hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, termination, recruiting, pay, and other forms of compensation, training, and general treatment during employment.
ABOUT JAM CITY
Jam City is an award-winning mobile entertainment company providing unique and deeply engaging games that appeal to a broad, global audience. The company is the creative powerhouse behind some of the highest-grossing games, generating over $4 billion in aggregate lifetime bookings and nearly 1.5 billion downloads for hundreds of millions of players around the world. In addition to conceiving and developing the hugely popular Cookie Jam and Panda Pop franchises, the company is a partner for some of the biggest global IP holders, having developed immersive, narrative-rich mobile games around iconic entertainment brands from NBCUniversal, Disney, and Warner Bros. Games. The company’s popular RPG game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery has generated over $500 million in bookings and 135 million installs since launch, Cookie Jam has generated over $1 billion in aggregate lifetime bookings, and Jurassic World Alive continues to be one of the top-grossing geo-location-based, AR mobile games in the market. Jam City has studios and talent located in Los Angeles (HQ), Burbank, Cedar Falls, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco, and, internationally, in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Montreal, and Toronto. For more information, please visitwww.jamcity.com.
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About The Company
Mobile entertainment at the intersection of creativity, technology, and play. Follow @JamCityHQ on IG for more.
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