Creative Director

KIPP Texas Public Schools is a network of 59 public charter, open-enrollment, pre-k-12 schools educating nearly 34,000 students across Austin, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Together with families and communities, our mission is to create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose —college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.

Founded in Houston in 1994, and operating as KIPP Texas since 2018, our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in our classrooms, in our offices, and in the communities we serve is unwavering. We are looking to hire a diverse team of dynamic, collaborative, and dedicated individuals with an unyielding belief that every child will succeed. Join our Team and Family and champion equity, chase excellence, persist with purpose, bring joy, and help us rise together.

KIPP Texas is part of the national KIPP network of 255 college-preparatory public charter schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Nationwide, KIPP students complete four-year college at a rate of 36 percent, comparable to the national average for all students and approximately three times higher than the average of students from low-income communities.

You can see all our job opportunities at https://kipptexas.org/join-our-team/.

The Creative Director will steward KIPP Texas’ brand by owning the development and adherence to KIPP Texas’ brand standards. This position will sit on the Marketing and Community Engagement team, reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, who oversees all marketing, communications, and operations for KIPP Texas. This position will oversee KIPP Texas’ brand standards development and implementation, the creative direction, project management, and successful delivery of all creative projects for internal and external-facing campaigns, signage, KIPP Texas’ website user experience, and the maintenance and usability of BrandFolder. This position will manage up to three people.

Coach and Develop up to Three Leaders And Maintain High Employee Engagement Results:

• Establish hiring practices to attract top performers for every role on the team, including equity-centered screening exercises, interview protocols, and hiring rubrics

• Customize onboarding practices to ensure each new team member is set up for success based on the unique responsibilities of their role

• Develop and execute differentiated professional development focused on technical capacity and leadership and management

• Stays in tune with teammates by hosting regular check-ins, strategy meetings, and stepbacks

Enhance the KIPP Texas brand by developing standards for organizational use, supporting with the design/providing design direction and execution for campaigns in partnerships with cross-functional department leaders and other projects as assigned:

• Manage and enhance the look and feel of KIPP Texas’ brand by developing brand standards and finding opportunities to share these among KTX staff

  • Develop systems that help promote uniformity and consistency of brand

  • Develop accountability structure for stakeholders

  • Leverage items from the KIPP Foundation and implement them without KTX brand standards as needed

• Leverage insight data to refine brand management

• Conduct brainstorming sessions with the creative team, maintaining strategic and creative thinking to develop innovative and actionable initiatives

• Review and approve art developed by the team, ensuring deliverables that effectively address campaign or initiative goals and meet branding guidelines

• Produce fresh, innovative work that translates complex ideas into compelling print materials and digital experiences

• Support the Director of Marketing with copywriting, providing input on all collateral (digital and/or print) before finalization

• Present, or oversee the presentation of final concepts, and obtain approvals for deliverables

• Ensure that 99% of projects are delivered on-time when necessary inputs are delivered on-time

• Review materials on a quarterly basis to identify areas of improvement for the next season of work

Serve as the Seniormost Brand Champion:

• Ensure all T2 and One Song leaders are brand ambassadors.

  • Build relationships to support accountability conversations

• Ensure all public-facing materials such as Board Meeting decks, Pitch decks (Development), etc. meet brand requirements.

Create a Best-In-Class Website for KIPP Texas’ multiple constituencies:

• Develop, strategize and improve the quality of user experiences on the KIPP Texas website throughout its design and development

• Create sketches, wireframes and prototypes to validate solutions for the website redesign set to launch in October 2022

• Understand and utilize behavior findings as measured by analytics and user research to inform design and development decisions

• Lead research and implementation of new tools, methods, and practices around web design and user experience design

• Partner with internal teams to ensure delivery of web solutions that are user-driven, intuitive, and represent KIPP Texas’ organizational goals

• Manage update schedule with fidelity

Support the Adoption of KIPP Texas’ Brand Standards by Implementing a Best-In-Class, On-Demand Solution for Branded Items (BrandFolder):

• Increase adoption, usage, and net promoter score of BrandFolder among key audiences, especially Academics, Student Recruitment, and EAs

• Refresh BrandFolder offerings annually based on download data

• Review analytics and requests with the Sr. Project Manager to determine which files should be available via BrandFolder

• Ensure publications meet the necessary specs for seamless production

• Create Training Videos

Create Branded Schools and SSP Spaces that Inspire:

• Conceptualize, design, and traffic to production all wayfinding and cultural signage for school buildings, SSP offices, and temporary school offices

• Develop signage packages for construction sites that promote our school opening

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required, master’s degree in applicable field preferred

• Experience: 10 years of full-time professional experience required; 3 years of full-time people management required

• Licenses or Certifications (if applicable): None

Knowledge and Skills:

• Strong writing and editing skills

• Experience in a non-profit and/or start-up

• Relationship-building and influencing skills, collaborating with internal and external stakeholders

• Creative, ambitious, and highly adept in designing and implementing cohesive project plans and cross-functional strategies

• Excellent communication skills, both orally and written

• Results and quality-focused with an eye for detail

Compensation and Benefits:

In addition to a competitive salary scale, a part of KIPP Texas’ competitive benefits options, KIPP offers all employees an $0 HMO plan for the employee only. In addition to our $0 plan, KIPP provides a $600 employer contribution towards a Health Savings Account and a variety of other supplemental benefits such as Dental, Vision, Short and Long-Term Disability, Pet Insurance, Life, etc.