Senior Art Director, The Envelope (Temporary)

The Los Angeles Times is seeking a temporary senior art director to join its features team with a focus on entertainment. The ideal candidate has experience working in magazines and digital media, commissioning and art-directing illustrations, with a portfolio that shows off high-level skills in design, typography and visual storytelling. They will be excited about championing brand consistency, driving visuals and have a passion for entertainment and pop culture. This person will be comfortable working under the deadlines of a busy newsroom and be willing to roll up their sleeves when needed to build story layouts for our digital stories, design branding for newsletters or podcasts and create photo illustrations. We want to make the visual voice of the Los Angeles Times truly special – a creative reflection of Los Angeles – and are looking for an energetic collaborator to join our team.

The senior art director will be a key player in leading and evolving our award-winning entertainment magazine and brand, The Envelope, and ensuring visual consistency across print and digital channels while staying on top of current design trends. If you love collaborative brainstorming and have the hands-on design and production skills to execute big ideas, we'd love to hear from you.

In this role you will:

• Design and produce seasonal issues of The Envelope magazine using Newsgate/CUE

• Design, art-direct and coordinate the digital builds of our stories using our CMS

• Collaborate with reporters, editors and other visual journalists to tell stories with impact

• Commission and art-direct freelance illustrators

• Create photo illustrations

• Develop innovative design ideas and approaches to storytelling

• Organize and take the lead on digital design projects such as Instagram accounts or newsletters, as well as coach designers to do the same

• Create branding for new initiatives

• Seek out new illustrator portfolios to add to our inclusive database of illustrators, with an emphasis on L.A. artists

• Learn and follow style guidelines

• Work with design managers to ensure brand coherence

• Experiment with what we can do as digital designers

• Lead meetings

• Create and maintain organizational documents

• Work with design directors to train and develop new hires and interns

Requirements:

• Six to 10 years of experience as an art director in magazine design

• A portfolio of work that demonstrates excellence in typography, art direction and photo editing

• Excellent time-management skills

• Experience assigning and art-directing illustrations

• Ability to work effectively in a team environment

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills

• Strong editorial news judgment, impeccable journalistic instincts and an unimpeachable commitment to ethics

• High energy and enthusiasm for journalism and visual storytelling

• A keen eye for current design trends and the ability to create designs in a variety of styles

• Demonstrated ability to design for daily digital stories and social media

• Ability to work on a tight deadline, especially in breaking news situations

• Strong working knowledge of design software such as InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator

• A history of designing and developing alternate story forms

• Positive self-starter capable of performing under pressure and making good decisions

• Experience with animation, motion graphics or After Effects a plus

• Strong knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript not required, but a plus

This full-time, temporary position is expected to last six months. We will consider candidates who would work remotely in other time zones as well as those who would work in El Segundo, Calif. Occasional night and weekend work is possible. 

Qualified candidates should submit a resume, cover letter and portfolio to Senior Deputy Design Director Faith Stafford.