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Art Director

Zynga
London, England, United Kingdom
1 year ago
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Art Director - Racing

OVERVIEW

At NaturalMotion, we make games that wow people. We innovate to create experiences that previously were impossible and that would not exist without us. We take pride in making titles that reach a large audience and in creating communities that last.

You are ambitious, intelligent, and intellectually curious. You are a self-disciplined problem-solver, who is respectful and straightforward with all your colleagues. You are trusting and trusted, flexible and emotionally mature, and you thrive on working with people who share these values.

As an Art Director you will be a peerless worker, able to operate at the highest levels in your craft. A thought leader for your discipline, you will be able to respectfully and tactfully offer guidance and support to your colleagues.

You will have a clear understanding of your leadership style and its impact on others, and be able to use a range of directive and non-directive leadership skills to get the best from your peers and team. You provide calm, confident leadership within your field of expertise.

You will be able to identify potential issues before they become problems, managing conflict and unprofessional behaviour. You are adept at handling stress or change on the team in a way that maintains confidence in the overall vision.

You will balance delivering results with caring for the needs of your team. You will motivate and guide others to excellence, acting as a role model for organisational and creative skills, whilst showing others ‘what good looks like’.

You will confidently and respectfully challenge the status quo in order to improve Art quality. Assertive when needed, you ensure the requirements of your team and your business are met by stakeholders at all levels.

Confident in your decision making, you nevertheless think carefully before you speak and act.

JOB PURPOSE

NaturalMotion seeks an Art Director to join the studios Art Leadership team and to drive and manage the art direction as well as overseeing the processes and pipelines for asset creation on the project. You will make sure the art direction is in service of, and under the umbrella of, the Racing Franchise Art Vision as defined by the Franchise VP Art.

As the Art Director, you will lead the art leadership team and are responsible for defining the strategy and tactics to deliver the art direction on the project.

Experienced at managing a team of direct and indirect reports, you will have a fluid and elegant understanding of a wide range of leadership, management, communication, and production practices, optimising engagement, productivity, and quality in your peers and team, whilst instilling it with the culture and values of NaturalMotion.

A strategic thinker, you will be able to define effective strategies for the future of art creation and translate those strategies into achievable tactical plans.

As Art Director you will ensure the predictable delivery of technology, features, and updates for Art on the project, helping translate your strategy into effective and achievable tactics.

KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

The Art Director oversees the Visual Direction on the project. This work encompasses the delivery of the game’s art vision at all stages of development from pre-dev to production and live-ops.

In partnership with the Franchise VP Art, the Art Director leads the art team to deliver all art elements for their game, including in-game 3D art, 2D assets, animation and once live high level marketing and brand creative.

The Art Director works closely with the Design Director and General Manager to ensure the Art Direction is of industry leading quality and constantly exploring new trends and methodology for creating an evoking and engaging art style for the game.

The Art Director will ensure all art planning is effective, clearly communicated and includes strategic planning for efficiencies and cross discipline dependencies.

The Art Director will drive art communication for the project. Presents with confidence, gravitas and persuasion within the team, organisation and to press.

The Art Director effectively defines and articulates all the art vision goals and visual rules/reasoning for the project in a way that is clearly understandable to different audiences.

The Art Director will promote an Art culture and relevance across the team.

The Art Director is responsible for the art teams health including team morale, effective oversight of team training and resourcing needs, and providing direct mentoring and development to 'level-up' artists.

COLLABORATION

The Art Director drives a culture in the Art team that values proactively working with all disciplines in the wider team (Design, Code, Product, OS and UA etc.) to help deliver the best possible experience and marketing value.

The Art Director has proven ability to clearly define the requirements for art production components including those that have significant cross discipline dependencies and requirements.

The Art Director is confidently able to manage staff and processes, including the teams' required interactions and planning responsibilities with stakeholders at all levels of the team and studio.

PRESENTATION and COMMUNICATION

The Art Director effectively adapts communication style to suit the audience and maximise their clear understanding and buy-in. Effectively presents complex art topics to a non-expert audience in a clear way that allows them to understand options.

The Art Director Presents with confidence and conviction to the team, executives, and external groups including suppliers. Effectively chairs team meetings and working group discussions to produce clear, agreed actions.

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT

The Art Director provides calm, confident leadership within their field of expertise that provides a clear focus for the team.

The Art Director is skilled at identifying potential risks in art execution processes before they become problems. Expertly adapts approach to suit situation and people involved. Expertly manages conflict and unprofessional behaviour. Adept at handling stress or change on the team in a way that maintains confidence in the art and game vision.

The Art Director coaches and mentors team members to develop professional Art skills.

DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES

Direction

Management

· Assist in the sourcing and attracting of talent required to meet the needs of the project.

· Mentors peers to inspire towards best practices.

· Delivers best quality whilst being mindful of game limitations and working with peers to agree on best outcome.

Art Culture

Reports to:

Line Reports:

The Art Director is responsible for managing the delivery of work from each of the Art Disciplines required to launch and manage a live service. Whilst individual team structures vary, direct reports may include some of the following teams:

Zynga does not engage in financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process. We do not conduct job interviews over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp or others. We will never ask you for your personal or financial information over unofficial chat channels. Our in-house recruitment team only contacts individuals via official company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com or naturalmotion.com email domain).

If you believe you have been the victim of a scam, you may wish to contact the authorities. In the United States, you may file a complaint with the FBI. More information is available here: https://www.ic3.gov.

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