Art Director - Unannounced Game
We have an exciting opportunity for an Art Director to join a growing team on one of our new and undisclosed titles in development! This role gives a rare opportunity for a leader to make a significant impact from conception to completion. Your craft and expertise will be applied directly to deliver and guide others to produce rich, diverse, high quality fantasy environments and props that surprise and delight our players!
As an Art Director, you are accountable for the definition, creation and ongoing maintenance of a sustainable live game project that supports the according product and creative direction. You are responsible for creating the artistic vision for the game, defining and maintaining a cohesive and engaging visual style across all aspects of the game world. You will also be accountable for creating, establishing and overseeing a smooth pipeline to ensure the highest visual quality is achieved by internal and external development teams throughout production. You will be expected to work closely with other teams such as product, production, design and engineering. Your collaboration with the game design and narrative teams will create cohesive environments, characters, and assets that support and enhance gameplay and storytelling. You steer and develop your vision while providing direct leadership and guidance to your art team. You will also work closely with interdisciplinary game teams to assist and consult with them to design and find solutions to problems across all crafts. You will lead, mentor, and manage a diverse team of artists, providing clear direction, feedback, and support to help them reach their full potential, providing motivation, coaching and advocating team creativity and best practices throughout all art disciplines including health and well-being. You will always be responsible for ensuring clear communication to the Jagex Senior Leadership Team and outwards to the rest of the business. At the Director level, you contribute to studio-wide topics, decisions and directives that will move the studio's engineering forward and continue establishing Jagex as a studio of exceptional talent. In addition, represent your team and Jagex at a product, leadership and craft level to the broader studio, community and industry.
WORKING WITHIN OUR ART TEAM, YOU WILL:
· Develop and establish an art vision that enhances and supports the creative direction, game design, product and marketing strategy· Produces easily digestible Art Direction visuals, pitches, guides and documentation to align team understanding and direction· Accountable for the quality of all art output on their assigned product· Directly line manage Associate Art Directors, Leads or parts of the art team as applicable · Advocates for best practices and pipelines in all art disciplines including outsourcing · Works with production to effectively plan art team delivery and highlight strategic risks· Creates team growth plans and collaborates with HR and talent acquisition to deliver· Being of support in recruiting top tier art talent· Levels the team up through mentoring, training and personal development plans· Inspires, motivates, and unleashes potential in individuals and team to deliver beyond their expectation· Concisely and clearly communicates upward to EP, Senior Directors, VP’s and Exec· Establishes high performing teams with craft excellence · Keeps themselves and the team informed of the latest advancements of technology and techniques specific to art.· Contributes toward studio initiatives, is a team and studio ambassador personifying the company values.· Be part of studio creative leadership shaping the strategy of the art department within Jagex
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR IN YOU:
· Portfolio demonstrating Art Direction capability (Style/ Production guides, paint-overs, etc)· Extensive end to end game development experience from concept, production through to live game on PC or Console to AAA standard· Able to communicate and propagate an artistic vision to teams, stakeholders and partners internally and externally as required· Competence in creating an ever-expanding live game with a variety of subsequent content additions over time within consistency and maintainability · Competent with strategies in growing, developing and managing multidisciplinary art and animation teams on a live product· Experience in large-scale co-development and/or outsourcing relations, not only for content creation but continuous development collaboration · Comfortable documenting and presenting current industry best practices to art and animation teams, critiquing problematic assets and workflows · Practical mentoring capability in at least two of the following areas: environment art, character art, concept art, technical art, UI, VFX or animation· Working knowledge of modern game development workflows across all major artistic disciplines· Able to show a solid understanding of art fundamentals like anatomy, composition, lighting/value, form/function and perspective· Strong leadership skills with an inspirational lead by example approach that unleashes potential in others · Ability to bring a competitive edge to the studio through Art Direction
Company Overview:
A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.
Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.
Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.
Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.
Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.
Company Benefits:
- Flexible Working- Bonus Scheme- Private Health Care - Gym Membership- Monthly Energy Allowance- Generous Pension Contributions- Life Insurance- Free Cycle Repair- Income Protection- Dental Plan- Free Fruit and Drinks- Subsidised Canteen
Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application! Jagex are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.