Creative
Creative recruiting for art direction, design and content leadership
KYO's creative search covers art and creative direction, brand and product design, copy and content, video and motion, and studio and production. These are permanent, direct-hire roles on in-house teams, at companies that make their own work rather than agencies that sell it. Creative search is the one where the portfolio does most of the talking, and where the brief has to be honest about how much autonomy the work will really get.
Which creative roles does KYO search?
- 01Art and creative direction. The people who set the direction and defend it, in-house rather than agency-side.
- 02Brand and product design. Identity, systems and the design of the product surface itself.
- 03Copy and content. Writers and editors, including the roles where the voice of the company is genuinely owned rather than borrowed.
- 04Video and motion. Everything from social-native production to brand film, in teams that increasingly make this in-house.
- 05Studio and production. The people who make a creative team ship, which is the role most often left unfilled and most often missed once it exists.
What is different about hiring creative people in-house?
The work is visible, which sounds like it makes assessment easy and does the opposite. A portfolio shows the output, not the conditions: the brief, the budget, the number of approval rounds, and how much of the original idea survived the journey through the business. Two portfolios can look alike and represent completely different jobs. The useful questions are about what the person actually decided, and what they did when the work got worse on its way to publication.
How do you read a portfolio properly?
| What the portfolio shows | What it does not show | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Beautiful finished work | Who art-directed it and who executed it | What was your specific role on this, start to finish |
| A famous brand | Whether they set the direction or worked inside a system someone else set | What existed before you, and what did you change |
| A consistent style across every project | Range, or one mode applied everywhere | Show me something that looks nothing like the rest of this |
| Agency work, in an in-house search | Whether they can operate without a producer and a written brief | What happens for you here when nobody writes you a brief |
| Case studies with results attached | Whether the creative caused the result | What did you learn when a piece you were proud of did not work |
Agency background or in-house background?
Both work, and the move in either direction is real rather than theoretical. An agency background usually brings craft, speed and a high tolerance for critique, and often needs support with ambiguity, because in-house there is frequently no brief and no producer. An in-house background usually brings business fluency and stakeholder management, and can need pushing on craft. The mistake is treating the two as interchangeable and being surprised in month three.
What does a good creative brief contain?
Who has final say on the work, how many approval layers sit between the maker and publishing, what the budget genuinely is, and whether this person is setting direction or executing someone else's. Senior creative people decline roles over the approval chain more often than over money, and a brief that is vague about it screens out the exact people it was written to attract.
Start a search
Start a creative search
Be clear about who has final say on the work, and the right people stay in the conversation.
kelly.yosten@kyosearchpartners.comCommon Questions
Do you place freelancers or contract creatives?
- No. Permanent, direct-hire only.
Should a creative director be a designer who was promoted?
- Not necessarily. Direction and execution are different skills, and some of the best directors were never the strongest executor on the team.
Do you work with agencies and studios?
- The clients here are companies hiring creative people in-house rather than agencies and studios selling creative work.
How do you assess a writer?
- On published work and on a conversation about choices, rather than on an unpaid test. If a test is part of your process, say so up front and be clear about scope.