Art Director in Leeds

An Art Director – often referred to simply as a ‘Creative’ – is responsible for the concept development / creation of advertising campaigns, with a particular bias to the visual look and feel. Traditionally Art Directors will work closely with Copywriters (who develop the accompanying words/copy), often as a dedicated ‘Creative Team’, to develop full campaign concepts.

It’s worth nothing that the boundaries between Art Director and Copywriter are often blurred and it’s highly likely that both will input in to the visual and copy aspects of the idea.

Agencies expect their Art Directors to be able to conceive and develop campaigns that work across all media channels, which can include everything from TV commercials, to radio ads, outdoor advertising (billboards, bus sides hordings etc.), print adverts, direct mail, digital ads, social media, point of sale and so on.

Art Directors are able to take a creative brief and insight provided by planners and/or account handlers and use this to develop captivating ideas that engage and resonate with the target audience. Working closely with a Copywriter, they ensure that the message is strengthened by combining both visual and copy elements to create maximum impact.

In order to present their ideas both internally to the Creative Director and often directly to clients, Art Directors will produce sketches (often called ‘scamps’) that convey the ad concept. These days it’s also becoming more common for agencies to expect their Art Directors to have a good base level of Mac skills in order to develop rough Mac visuals of their ideas.

Often, Art Directors (and their Copywriter counterpart) will be on-site at shoots (photo or film) to ensure that what’s being captured is aligned to their creative vision.

Art Directors are always highly creative and have a hunger for keeping abreast of all the latest trends in the advertising world. They understand different target audiences, are able to apply creative thinking to business problems and are genuinely fascinated by people, advertising and brands.

Working in a creative team within an agency is always fast paced and most Art Directors will be expected to work on more than one project at once, typically reporting in to a Creative Director.

When interviewing for a new role, Art Directors will always be expected to talk the Creative Director through their portfolio of work, so it’s always important to be keeping this up to date with your best work.

Salary wise outside of London the role generally pays between £21,000 to £65,000 depending on regional variance and level of experience.

Long known as the ‘Knightsbridge of the North’ due to its restored Victorian arcades which house many top-drawer retailers, including Harvey Nichols, Leeds will soon be host to its second new shopping centre in three years. Victoria Gate will open in the autumn of 2016, on the heels of the wildly successful Trinity centre. Its flagship store will be John Lewis and the whole complex aims to regenerate the southern end of the city.

Leeds is also famous for its eating and drinking scene and the last year has seen a host of new venues: Pintura, Iberica, Stockdales to name just three new restaurants, Manahatta, Turk’s Head and Headrow House for bars. The Northern Quarter alone has seen eight new bars open in the last twelve months. But Leeds is not just a city for leisure, it’s a city built on innovation: in engineering, in manufacturing, in retail. Over the last twenty years or so, we’ve been quietly innovating in another field: digital. From offering the UK’s first free internet service providre, Freeserve, and the pioneering online news service Ananova, Leeds was at theforefront of the early internet and it continues to innovate.

DataCity is developing innovative ways of using data to solve a city’s problems. The Leeds Institute for Data Analytics is working on ground-breaking ways of using data to understand health and human behaviour, attracting funding of £12m in the process. The NHS’s Health and Social Care Information Centre, which hosts 70 million patient records and handles over 6bn messages annually, is based in the city; the HSCIC developed its data systems with local company BJSS. It’s no surprise that with all this innovation, there are more data scientists in Leeds than anywhere else outside London, which is leading to a shortage of qualified candidates.

There are now over 70,000 people employed in the Leeds City Region in the digital sector, working in almost 9,000 firms. Some of those firms are huge employing many hundreds of people: Sky Bet, Callcredit, Perform, William Hill and Rockstar Games. Sky moved into Leeds in 2015 and employed over 450 in their first year in the city, Sky Bet have increased their numbers from 640 to over 1000. The Leeds Digital Festival brought many of these companies and organisations together in April 2016, hosting 56 events with over 175 speakers, providing a platform for the sector.

However, the digital scene is not just about the big firms, it also has hundred of smaller firms, creating and innovating in digital health, in data science, in the Internet of Things. A great example is home security firm Cocoon, founded by five locals, and named as one of the top ten key startups in the UK, with its revolutionary ‘Subsound’ technology.

All this success has led to a few issues: many of the firms with vacancies have had difficulties in filling all the roles from within the city. Some of the larger employers are now seeing their staff commute in from as far as Manchester in the West and Hull in the East, with many also coming in from North and South Yorkshire. However, the attractiveness of Leeds as a place to live also makes it easier to persuade employees to relocate from elsewhere in the country.

Other marketing sectors are also flourishing: we have a growing PR scene with companies such as Umpf, Finn and Hatch. This is also leading to demand for experienced staff, with salaries being pushed higher. There is also higher demand for candidates with SEO and PPC skills; we’ve seen a number of agencies struggle to get the right candidates within the city and are attracting employees from further afield.