Job Description

America's Test Kitchen (ATK), one of the pioneering brands in food media, is seeking a stellar Creative Director to lead our design organization and to define the brand’s overall creative direction and visual identity. This is a rare opportunity to shape the creative vision of a brand which reaches millions of fans across media platforms including digital, television, streaming, magazines, books, social media, podcasts, and more.

Based in Boston, MA and reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Creative Director will guide a creative organization of approximately 30 professionals spanning digital product design, editorial design, and photography, and have a significant role in helping to shape the future of the company where savory aromas from the test kitchen waft through the office.

The Creative Director will oversee design for ATK’s brands – including America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country – and will work in close partnership with the Editorial, Product, Tech, and Marketing teams, and focus on user-centric design to ensure that the ATK brand evolves thoughtfully while maintaining its trusted essence. The role also oversees the company’s photography division with photographers, image specialists, and hundreds of in-house shoots per year.

Primary Responsibilities

Strategic Vision

• Define the brand’s overall creative direction and visual identity
• Leverage design to further ATK’s mission to empower and inspire confidence, community and creativity in the kitchen
• Guide the evolution of the ATK brand across all touchpoints, ensuring cohesion while allowing for platform-specific innovation
• Understand the customer cooking journey to make UX in ATK platforms more valuable to home cooks
• Combine deep familiarity with digital products with a forward-looking vision for ATK's digital future
• Partner with Product Tech and Editorial teams to create intuitive, engaging digital experiences that embody our brand values
• Identify opportunities for innovation while ensuring incremental improvements to existing products

Shape Brand Experiences

• Maintain and evolve brand identity guidelines that provide consistency while creating pathways for growth
• Develop graphics toolkits and visual systems for ATK's video projects across TV, YouTube, and social media
• Maintain a unified brand experience across platforms

Innovation and Trends

• Keep abreast of emerging technologies, trends and audience behaviors to infuse fresh ideas in creative processes and design
• Understand competitive landscape in order to differentiate ATK’s content in the market
• Manage and mentor all members of the Design and Photography teams
• Inspire and create a culture of creativity, innovation and collaboration
• Foster an environment where team members can reach their full creative potential
• Set a high creative bar that challenges the team to produce consistently best-in-class work

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as the thread connecting editorial vision, product strategy, and marketing execution
• Work across departments to ensure visual storytelling enhances ATK’s meticulously tested content
• Partner with executive leadership to align brand strategy with business outcomes

Resource Management

• Balance visionary thinking with practical execution, helping teams navigate deadlines and workload
• Manage creative budgets, timelines and resources

Skills and Experience

• 10+ years of creative leadership experience and a premium portfolio demonstrating expertise across all media and channels (digital, brand, print, photography, video, marketing)
• Strong background in art direction, visual design, typography, and multimedia production
• 5+ years of experience managing design teams of at least 10 people
• Deep understanding of digital product design and user experience
• Experience working with product, content and engineering teams
• Proven ability to evolve established brands while honoring their history
• Track record of building and developing high-performing creative teams
• Exceptional eye for design with the ability to articulate and champion creative vision
• Strategic thinking that balances creative excellence with business objectives
• Diplomatic leadership style that builds consensus while maintaining high standards
• Passion for cooking and connecting with the home cook's journey
• Proficiency in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite

This position is located in our Boston, MA office in the Seaport District. It is the expectation that the person in this role will work a hybrid schedule of 3 days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday) in the office and 2 days per week remotely.

About America’s Test Kitchen

The mission of America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America’s Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK Essential subscription for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston’s Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques. Learn more at .

Why America’s Test Kitchen

We're passionate about cooking, and about creating the best place to work. We're small enough for your ideas to make a big impact, and large enough to offer you opportunities to grow professionally at any stage of your career. We want you to take risks and make mistakes — that's how innovation happens in our test kitchen, in our offices, and in life.

We at America’s Test Kitchen believe food media can be a powerful force for social change. We are passionate about building an inclusive workforce that represents many different cultures, backgrounds, abilities, identities, and perspectives.

Job Tags

Similar Jobs