Art and Production Director

The Art and Production Director manages and leads a production design team responsible for creating, adapting, and maintaining high-quality sales and marketing materials across the organization. This role connects brand strategy, creative execution, sales enablement, and production operations to efficiently translate the evolving brand into practical, effective materials that support bankers and the business. The role leads people and production operations, manages creative request intake and workflow, translates brand direction across the sales-material ecosystem, and uses production data to improve efficiency, scalability, responsiveness, creative quality, and brand consistency. This role will report to the Creative Director.

Responsibilities

Manage, lead, coach, and develop a production design team responsible for executing sales and marketing creative; Establish expectations for creative quality, productivity, responsiveness, and adherence to brand standards; Lead print production by managing mechanical file setup, prepress workflows, press checks, and quality control; Prioritize and assign work based on business impact, designer capacity, skills, deadlines, and production requirements; Balance team workloads, address capacity constraints and bottlenecks, and provide clear creative and production direction; Manage the intake, prioritization, assignment, workflow, review, approval, and completion of sales creative requests; Establish scalable production standards and workflows that improve speed, quality, visibility, and service to internal partners; Maintain visibility into production volume, capacity, status, aging, recurring demand, and resource utilization; Partner with Marketing, Sales Enablement, Creative, and other business line stakeholders to clarify requirements and prioritize work; Translate brand themes, campaigns, visual systems, and positioning into practical sales and marketing materials; Lead the rollout, adaptation, versioning, resizing, and extension of creative concepts across products, channels, audiences, and sales applications; Analyze production data to identify demand patterns, repetitive work, bottlenecks, and opportunities for templating and process improvement; Maintain current, organized, version-controlled production templates, design libraries, specifications, documentation, and finished assets; Maintain expertise in Adobe Creative Cloud's embedded AI tools and evolving production technologies; Demonstrate compliance with all bank regulations for assigned job function and keep up to date on regulation changes; Follow all Bank policies and procedures, compliance regulations, and complete all required annual or job-specific training; Maintain a working knowledge of Bank's written policies and procedures regarding Bank Secrecy Act, Regulation CC, Regulation E, Bank Security and other applicable regulations; May be asked to coach, mentor, or train others and teach coursework as subject matter expert; Actively learn, demonstrate, and foster the Columbia corporate culture in all actions and words; Take personal initiative and be a positive example for others to emulate; Embrace the vision to become "Business Bank of Choice"; May perform other duties as assigned

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in graphic design, visual communications, and digital media, or other related field; 5+ years of experience in art direction and production, preferably within a corporate or financial services environment; 10+ years of experience as a Graphic/Production Designer or other relevant design experience; 5+ years of experience managing a production design team; Proven ability to develop brand-aligned visual strategies and maintain brand integrity across digital, mobile, print, and environmental channels within a highly regulated financial environment; Strong ability to manage, lead, and develop a production design team; Expertise in translating complex financial concepts and marketing strategies into clear, accessible, audience-centered visual communications; Proven experience leading creative projects and collaborating with Marketing, Sales Enablement, Legal, Compliance, and creative partners to deliver high-quality, accurate, and compliant materials; Extensive knowledge of financial-industry accessibility, regulatory, compliance, and production-quality requirements, supported by exceptional attention to detail and refined aesthetic judgment; Advanced proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects, Firefly, Adobe Express, and Premiere, with professional-level photo retouching, video editing, and post-production capabilities; Strong production-operations capability, including creative request intake, prioritization, resource allocation, workflow management, quality review, approval, and delivery under tight deadlines and budget constraints; Proficiency in developing and maintaining scalable production templates, design libraries, specifications, documentation, and organized, version-controlled assets; Ability to analyze production and creative-performance data to improve resource allocation, turnaround, campaign effectiveness, process efficiency, and return on investment; Strong experience in both prepress and press environments, managing technical production requirements, conducting press checks, and ensuring the highest standards of print quality and consistency; Advanced proficiency in Microsoft 365 applications; Knowledge of web and digital content creation that supports integrated marketing, print, video, and animation projects; Occasional travel may be required

Benefits

Competitive total rewards package including base wages and comprehensive benefits; Medical, dental, and vision plans; 401(k) retirement savings plan with employer match; Employee assistance program; Life insurance; Disability insurance; Tuition assistance; Mental health resources; Identity theft protection; Legal support; Auto and home insurance; Pet insurance; Access to an online discount marketplace; Paid vacation, sick days, volunteer days, and holidays