Senior Art Director

Benefits

• Fully paid health, vision, and dental insurance
• 4 day work week
• Unlimited PTO
• Fully remote office and culture
• Free cat food every month
• Competitive salary

Overview

Smalls is a premium direct-to-consumer cat food and cat lifestyle brand built on the belief that the cats who matter most deserve food that truly reflects that bond. We craft fresh, human‑grade meals for cats and have spent eight years shaping a brand that feels as thoughtful as the product inside the bag. This fully remote, United States–based role is a full-time opportunity to elevate the brand system across channels and touchpoints.

Responsibilities

• Visual creative leadership: establish brand standards and taste, serving as the visual authority across every touchpoint while catching and correcting anything that drifts away from Smalls.
• Art direction across surfaces: concept and direct shoots, oversee creative production, and ensure the visual system remains cohesive across growth creative, retail displays, packaging, site, social, merch, physical product design, campaigns, OOH, email, and collaborations.
• Meta and performance creative: own social creative as a distinct domain, directing the full marketing lens (photo, video, creator-style content, captions, audio) and the strategy that ties it all together.
• Agency oversight and decision-making: lead agency selection, own briefs, and make final calls on assets that ship, with the Chief Brand Officer weighing in on direction and review.
• Team leadership: manage a Senior Designer, Graphic Designer, and two Product Designers, providing real creative direction and ensuring brand alignment across graphic and product/UX contexts.
• Creative process ownership: define and maintain processes from brief to production to final output, upholding rigorous standards and consistency.
• Cross-functional collaboration: move work through the organization, resolve misalignment before it becomes a bottleneck, and advocate for brand logic in cross-functional discussions.
• Evolving the system: as Smalls expands into new categories, evaluate brand demands, write briefs, connect departments, and make confident cases for or against creative decisions.

Requirements

• 7+ years of in-house brand experience, holding visual standards across channels without a large internal or agency infrastructure, with experience directing shoots and managing designers.
• Systems thinking: you design and manage at the level of systems, not just assets.
• Strong design instincts that translate into real creative direction, balancing a brand-led product experience with conversion-focused work.
• Fluency across graphic design and UX/UI contexts enough to meaningfully direct product designers while upholding brand standards across digital surfaces.
• People-management strength: clear, calm leadership that provides direction without inducing unnecessary tension, and decisive decision-making.
• Cat ownership or genuine willingness to adopt one as a functional requirement for daily work, reflecting the brand and product focus.
• Excellent communication: write briefs, explain direction, push back when needed, and present thinking directly to founders.
• Comfort as the operational center of the function, with the Chief Brand Officer guiding high-level direction and you handling day-to-day execution.

What we don't need

• Someone who intends to rebuild the visual system from scratch when the current one is strong; the role is to evolve, not replace.
• Someone who requires heavy management to function; you will operate with the CBO's strategic input while running day-to-day work independently.
• A portfolio-only mindset; we value how you articulate and defend your work, and how you handle feedback and pushback in real conversations.

The team you’re joining

You will work alongside the Associate Creative Director, Copy, and Director of Integrated Brand Ops, while leading a design team of four (Senior Designer, Graphic Designer, and two Product Designers). You will report to the Chief Brand Officer. Smalls is fully remote with occasional travel for shoots, offsites, and key creative moments.

What you’ll love about us

• Mission-driven: a focus on cats and their people, aiming to enrich nine lives and more.
• People-driven: a respectful culture that supports work–life balance and values the contributions of each team member.
• Data-informed culture with room to move quickly when instinct and insight align.
• Competitive salary and generous benefits.
• Fully remote with opportunities to connect on-site for off-sites and key moments.
• Free product: monthly cat food for the team’s feline companions.

Compensation

Salary range: $168,000 – $185,000 per year USD.