Job Description

The Whitney Museum of American Art seeks a Creative Director to serve as the museum's senior creative leader, with final creative authority over the institution's brand and visual expression. Reporting to the Chief Communications & Content Officer, the Creative Director sets and stewards a unified creative vision across brand identity, graphic design, video, photography, and exhibition design, and is responsible for the visual coherence of the Whitney across every public-facing surface.

This is a leadership role for a creative with exceptional judgment, range, and authority: someone who can move seamlessly between exhibition identity systems, marketing campaign creative, and always-on storytelling, while building the teams and systems required to execute at scale. Accessibility, legibility, and audience-centered design are core principles, integrated into every layer of creative output.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in graphic design across digital, print, environmental, and motion contexts, with a portfolio that demonstrates mastery of typography, identity systems, and design systems thinking.

Key Responsibilities

Creative Vision & Brand Leadership

• Own and evolve the Whitney's brand and creative direction across graphic design, video, photography, and exhibition design, in alignment with institutional priorities and long-term brand architecture.
• Translate strategic initiatives, including exhibitions, the Biennial, free admission, and civic and cultural moments, into compelling creative expressions and identity systems that feel distinctively Whitney.
• Oversee exhibition identity systems and interpretive design, including title walls, wall labels, wayfinding, and exhibition-specific visual identities, ensuring coherence across print, environmental, and digital formats.
• Collaborate directly with artists, curators, and estates on commissioned creative and interpretive materials.
• Act as a steward of taste, quality, and coherence across all owned channels and major public-facing moments.

Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor and manage the Creative team across graphic design, video, and photography, setting clear roles, expectations, and development pathways.
• Build a healthy, high-performing creative culture that balances ambition with sustainability.
• Oversee freelance creatives, agencies, and production partners, ensuring consistency and accountability.
• Steward the creative budget, including production spend, vendor relationships, and resource allocation.

Creative Strategy & Planning

• Partner with the CCCO and leadership across Communications, Digital Content, and Marketing to align creative output with narrative strategy and audience goals.
• Develop creative frameworks and toolkits that enable teams to adapt complex ideas across formats while sustaining high standards.
• Ensure the Whitney's on-site experience and digital expression read as one coherent brand across physical, environmental, and digital surfaces.

Video, Photography & Content Direction

• Set creative direction for video and photography across platforms, including longform, shortform, social, on-site, editorial, campaign, and experiential.
• Oversee commissioned and editorial photography, in partnership with Digital Content, Press, Curatorial, and Rights Management.
• Apply audience and performance insight to sharpen creative decisions, while protecting room for experimentation and creative risk.
• Cross-Departmental Collaboration
• Serve as creative partner to Marketing, Curatorial, Education, and Advancement, supporting revenue-adjacent initiatives across membership, ticketing, retail, and partnerships.
• Provide creative oversight on co-branded activations and licensing collaborations, ensuring partner integrations protect and extend the Whitney's brand.
• Represent Creative in cross-functional planning and executive-level discussions, navigating complex stakeholder environments with confidence and diplomacy.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years of experience in creative leadership roles within cultural institutions, media organizations, creative agencies, or adjacent fields, with demonstrated fluency in contemporary art, artists, and the cultural landscape.
• Deep expertise in graphic design across digital, print, environmental, and motion contexts. Strong command of typography, identity systems, and design systems thinking. Portfolio must demonstrate sustained mastery of design craft, not solely creative direction.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary creative teams across design, video, and photography.
• Proven ability to translate strategy into creative systems and identity frameworks.
• Experience leading or contributing to brand evolution at an institutional scale.
• Experience working in complex, matrixed organizations with multiple stakeholders.

Skills & Attributes

• Exceptional creative judgment and editorial taste.
• Hands-on design fluency across digital and physical formats, with the ability to direct, critique, and elevate design work at the level of detail required to maintain Whitney standards.
• Strategic thinker who understands how creative work drives audience engagement and institutional impact.
• Strong people manager with the ability to coach, motivate, and develop creative talent.
• Comfortable balancing data-informed insights with creative intuition.
• Clear communicator who can articulate creative rationale to creative and non-creative audiences.
• Calm, solutions-oriented presence in high-visibility, high-pressure moments.
• Diplomatic and confident in working with artists, estates, trustees, and senior institutional leaders.

​​​​​ Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range is $170 - $185K and will be commensurate with experience
• Medical, Dental, Vision, 403(b) elections
• Generous Paid Time Off benefits
• Commuter benefits - parking and mass transit
• Admission to world-renowned museums across the city and nationally
• Pet insurance and discounted membership for Citibike

The advertised pay scale reflects the good faith minimum and maximum salary range for this role. The advertised pay scale is not a promise of a particular wage for any specific employee. The specific compensation offered to a candidate may be dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s experience, education, special licensing or qualifications, and other factors.

If you believe that you could excel in this role, we encourage you to apply. We are dedicated to considering a broad array of candidates. Whether you’re new to arts and culture administration, returning to work after a gap in employment, simply looking to transition, or take the next step in your career path, we will be glad to have you on our radar. Please use your cover letter to tell us about your interest in the arts and culture space and what you hope to bring to this role.

About the Whitney

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for 86 years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists themselves, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.

EEO Statement

The Whitney Museum of American Art is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The Museum does not discriminate because of age, sex, religion, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage or citizenship, disability, marital status, pregnancy, partnership status, caregiver status, veteran status, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, genetic information, predisposition, or carrier status, arrest or conviction record to the extent required by applicable law, credit history, domestic violence, sexual violence, or stalking victim status, or any other factor prohibited by law. The Museum hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled. The Museum encourages all qualified candidates to apply for vacant positions at all levels.