Design Director

The Role

You are equal parts designer and leader — a true tastemaker with strong creative judgment and a clear point of view. This is a deeply embedded role, dedicated to a single, complex, future-facing platform where creativity, systems thinking, and generative tools intersect. You understand both creativity and practicality, and you navigate that duality with confidence. You inspire and do. You manage up and down. You bring clarity to complexity and momentum to ideas, delivering exceptional brand work with rigor, taste, and intention.

Your Responsibilities

1. You identify, curate, and refine standout ideas in close collaboration with the Creative Director. You bring sharp, creative judgment and a refined point of view, framing work clearly and persuasively. You encourage and nurture this same level of taste and discernment within your team.

2. You split your time between leading and designing. You champion exceptional brand identities and are hands-on in making them real — designing directly when needed and directing photographers, animators, illustrators, and specialist craft collaborators to push the work in new directions.

3. You bring a strong, informed perspective on generative tools and AI. You understand the broader AI landscape and can engage in thoughtful, critical discourse — shaping strong prompts and systems, challenging ideas constructively, and ensuring the work is innovative, intentional, and never driven by hype.

4. You collaborate deeply with the team around you, mentoring wherever possible. You manage both up and down, acting as a trusted conduit between the Creative Director and Designers, ensuring clarity, momentum, and creative excellence.

5. You build compelling narratives, deliver thoughtful presentations, and confidently lead workshops and client working sessions. You don’t just present work — you extend the dialogue, challenge assumptions, and evolve ideas in true partnership.

6. You collaborate closely with the Strategy team throughout immersion and strategic phases, shaping creative responses that are conceptually strong, culturally relevant, and commercially sound.

7. You demonstrate an exceptional understanding of branding and the creative practitioners within it. You consistently deliver work for today’s most impactful companies and the builders shaping what comes next.

8. You demonstrate ownership of your role and actively seek, take, and apply feedback from your manager. You provide clear, actionable feedback and meaningful support to your team, helping them grow creatively and professionally.

9. You have a strong awareness of the time, craft, and collaboration required to produce excellent work. You manage your own time and your team’s time effectively — calendars, meetings, and scopes — to deliver high-quality work on schedule.

10. You are comfortable working in person from our Culver City studio and are open to global travel when needed.

11. You have a strong command of Figma, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Pitch, and stay curious about emerging tools and workflows that elevate the work.

Our Responsibilities

1. We will ensure you have meaningful and regular access to your manager to support your personal development and career trajectory.

2. We will actively reward performance with promotions, pay increases, and a discretionary annual bonus of up to 10% of salary to all employees.

3. We ensure Koto is an equal environment for all its employees.

4. We will support you in taking family leave and offer significant paid maternity and paternity.

5. We will actively encourage you to take 25 vacation days per year, in addition to US national holidays (on average 10) and a studio closure between Christmas and New Year.

6. We offer a 401(k) plan you can contribute to, and Koto matches up to 4%.

7. We deploy a monthly ‘employee wellness’ benefits package via Juno of $105 per month.

8. We offer YCN access and fund relevant training opportunities for any employee looking to develop themselves and their career.

9. We reward five years of service with $5,000 and five days' holiday. We reward ten years of service with $10,000 and four weeks' holiday.

10. We will give you the opportunity to work from any of the five Koto studios globally, with appropriate planning and application.

Our Culture

• At Koto, we encourage our team to be ‘rationally optimistic’ about the potential of our work, our clients, their businesses, and the power of brand.

• We pursue the best briefs, want to inspire meaningful work, and, for those interested, provide an opportunity to make the work of their lives. We are actively cultivating leadership, culture, and spaces to encourage this.

• We work in person with an optional WFH day on Friday and an additional 2 weeks of remote work per year. We believe this produces the best work, mentoring opportunities, collective learning, and culture.

• We encourage autonomy among our team members, allowing them to manage their own time, hours, and personal commitments to complete their work.