Art Director

Are you a passionate and self-driven person who is ready to break new ground for what will become the new norm of mobile gaming? We are looking for a seasoned Art Director to join our skilled and highly effective team in Helsinki, Finland.

In this new role you will be responsible for the breakthrough artistic vision of our upcoming MMO game, and will contribute to Dazzle Rocks’ success by helping to grow the IP to a global game brand played by millions. You will drive the development of concept art, game & IP art style, and work closely with our artists and development team to realize the vision of the game. In addition to leading the art team by example and giving them well formed feedback and direction, you’re not afraid to busy yourself also with producing 3D assets and concepts. From time to time you will also be working with outsourcing and other external partners.

This role is a mixture of day-to-day art direction and content creation for the game. We have our own IP, expanding 3D world with characters, buildable elements, and living, procedural world environment. We value traditional art skills upgraded to modern-day design thinking and understanding the player experience and graphics as a whole.

If you’re right at home in a fast-moving and growing start-up environment and being a great team collaborator and mentor is second nature to you, let’s connect!

Responsibilities

• Work on the key art assets, concepts, and 3D assets
• Create an aesthetic vision that fits with the overall game concept of sandbox MMO world-building
• Create well researched, original creative concepts
• Direct the work and milestone goals of artists to achieve the set visual target and technical performance
• Provide quality benchmarks and notes for art assets for internal team and external outsourcing partners
• Establish best practices and improve art pipelines in collaboration with technical artists and developers
• Act as a role model for artists by constant improvement, emphasizing best practices, leading by example and supporting team growth
• Provide feedback and act as a stakeholder towards external partners

Qualifications

• 5+ years of games industry experience
• Must have art direction and/or art lead experience on at least one published global mobile title and participated in the full development cycle
• You have a understanding of foundation art principles including drawing, 2D/3D shape language, color theory, anatomy, lighting, etc. (Portfolio required)
• Able to work well under pressure and with deadlines
• Modesty and respect when receiving and giving feedback
• Strong knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite and other 2D packages
• Strong knowledge of 3D software (Maya, Blender, 3D Max or similar)
• Understanding of mobile games, latest art styles & techniques, production methods, and art pipelines
• Solid organization skills with a bias towards action and problem-solving
• Active attitude and a desire to bring new ideas to the team
• A great motivator who can also demonstrate high-performance artistic output
• Passion for making and playing mobile games and awareness of current titles and industry trends
• A people manager who understands which mix of team is needed to excel and drive great art
• Experience with outsourced content and proven ability to work with outsourcing and external development teams
• Great communication skills in English

Bonus points

• Ability to go beyond expectations and push the limits of mobile graphics
• International network and wide reference library of IPs
• Passion towards storytelling, virtual worlds, and world-building
• Being able to grow extraordinary art talent and also hire it internationally

What we offer

• Passionate, fun & start-up minded colleagues
• Collaborative, open-minded and international team
• Newly renovated studio space at the heart of Helsinki
• Possibility to work remotely
• Competitive compensation & benefits
• Possibilities to develop in your role and skills, be the architect of your own path

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About Dazzle Rocks

We are building an upcoming social MMO game for the mobile and beyond. We are taking the real-time gameplay, world-building, and shared persistent universe to a new level and will revolutionize the Sandbox MMO genre.

We are a growing international team with experience in building successful mobile games, distributed game server technology, and an ambitious and fun working culture. Our latest game is soon entering public beta and we are now looking for pioneering, start-up minded people to join us!