Design Director

Location: NY-based preferred

Our designers are makers and storytellers who use design and technology to bring bold ideas to life. We believe great designers can move between disciplines, think in systems, prototype ideas and give form to things that don’t yet have established conventions.

We’re looking for a Design Director to help lead that practice.

Working closely with our ECD, you’ll be responsible for raising the ambition, quality and influence of design across Addition. You’ll help lead our small design team, direct some of our most important work, and establish what exceptional design looks like for an AI-native agency.

This isn’t a traditional agency Design Director role. We’re looking for someone with a broader conception of design, someone who is equally interested in brands, products, interfaces, systems, interactions and experiences. You don’t believe in the traditional discipline boundaries. What matters is that you’re an exceptional designer with taste, curiosity and a point of view about where the discipline of design is going.

AI is changing both what we design and how we design it. Interfaces are becoming generative, products are becoming adaptive, brands are becoming systems that can create and respond in real time. At Addition we’re building a team that is excited by and leading this creative shift, we’re not looking for someone with all the answers, but someone who wants to invent them with us.

On any given day…

Raise the bar for design
Set an exceptionally high standard for craft, taste and originality across Addition’s work. Know what makes something great, what makes it distinctive, and importantly be able to articulate why.

Be the ECD’s partner in leading the design practice
Help shape the creative direction of the agency, lead the design team day-to-day, and turn our ambitions for design into the work, culture and capabilities required to achieve them.

Lead through the work
This is not a management only role. We’re looking for someone who gets close to the work, sketching, designing, prototyping, critiquing alongside the team. Help turn ambiguous briefs into clear, compelling directions and solutions.

Develop exceptional designers
Create an environment in which designers flourish. Give precise, useful feedback and help the team strengthen their taste, judgment and craft, all whilst encouraging them to develop their own creative point of view.

Think beyond traditional design categories
Move comfortably between UX / UI, digital products, interfaces, storytelling, content and emerging forms of experience. Look for opportunities to connect disciplines rather than defend their boundaries.

Design systems, not artifacts
Think about the principles, behaviours and relationships behind an experience, not simply its visual surface. Help us create ideas that adapt, generate and evolve rather than producing static, fixed outputs.

Explore what AI makes possible
Treat AI as a new creative and design medium, not a production shortcut. Experiment with new interaction models, generative systems, agentic experiences and creative workflows. Help us develop a point of view about what designing ‘with’ and ‘for’ AI means.

Bring humanity to technology
Technology alone is never ever the solution. Be a champion of work with character, emotion, and cultural relevance. Design for feeling as much as function.

Partner across disciplines
Work closely with engineers, creative technologists, strategists, writers, and producers. Be comfortable moving between creative and technical conversations, and lead multidisciplinary teams to solutions that individual disciplines wouldn’t have reached alone.

Lead clients
Be a compelling presence in any room and lead important conversations. Explain complex ideas convincingly, defend creative decisions thoughtfully, and help clients see possibilities in the work they hadn’t imagined.

The ideal person:

Is a design fundamentalist
You care deeply about typography, composition, interaction, motion, hierarchy, narrative and detail. New technology makes those fundamentals more important, not less. You can identify the difference between something competent and something exceptional, explain that difference clearly.

Has a range of experience
Your portfolio might cross product, brand, digital experience, creative technology, identity and communication design. We’re more interested in the breadth of your thinking than whether you’ve spent your career in one particular type of agency or company.

Thinks in systems
You naturally look beyond individual screens and executions toward behaviours, principles, components and frameworks that make ideas coherent and extensible.

Is AI native
You actively experiment with emerging AI tools and understand their significance. You’re curious about agents, generative interfaces, adaptive systems and new forms of human-machine interaction. You’re comfortable using prototypes to answer questions. You’re experimenting with tools that allow designers to work directly with code and models rather than limiting yourself to static representations.

Makes others better
You’re generous with your judgment and experience. You know when to give direction, when to ask a question, and when to let someone find the answer themselves.

Is comfortable with ambiguity
Addition is small and AI is moving quickly. You’ll encounter problems for which neither we nor the industry have established playbooks. That’s part of the fun of working at Addition.

You bring:

Around 8+ years of experience in design, with experience leading significant creative work and mentoring other designers.

A portfolio demonstrating exceptional design craft and conceptual thinking. You’ve worked across more than one of brand, product, experience, technology or communication design.

Experience leading multidisciplinary projects from early concept through execution.

Hands-on experience experimenting with generative AI, prototyping and emerging creative technology.