Manager – Art Direction, Brand Studio

About Castelion

Castelion is bringing a new approach to defense development and production: one that focuses on short, iterative design cycles, rapid testing in development, and modern commercial manufacturing strategies for production at scale. We're designing, building, and testing next generation long range strike weapons systems to give America and its Allies a definitive edge and deter future conflicts.

Manager – Art Direction, Brand Studio

As Manager - Art Direction, Brand Studio, you own the day-to-day design leadership and creative execution that brings Castelion's brand to life across campaigns, systems, and key touchpoints. You'll translate brand strategy set by senior leadership into practical, repeatable, high-quality design solutions that work across digital, print, recruiting, events, and built environments.

This is a hands-on role that blends making and leading. You will design, art direct, and build the infrastructure, including templates, libraries, playbooks, and workflows that enable high-quality, on-brand work at scale. You will collaborate closely with Marketing & Communications, Business Development and Capture, HR, and Engineering to turn complex technical and mission stories into clear, compelling visual narratives.

Responsibilities

Brand systems and visual identity

• Evolve and maintain Castelion's visual identity system (logo usage, color, typography, imagery, layout, motion guidelines) so it works across internal and external channels.
• Translate brand and visual principles into clear standards, toolkits, and documentation that non-designers can actually use.
• Build and maintain centralized component and asset libraries in Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud, with naming conventions, versioning, and usage guidance.

Campaigns, launches, and flagship stories

• Lead art direction for integrated campaigns, product and capability launches, customer and investor narratives, recruiting initiatives, conferences, and major announcements.
• Drive cohesive creative across channels, including web and digital assets, social visuals, print collateral, video storyboards, event graphics and activations so everything feels unmistakably Castelion.
• Turn complex, often technical subject matter into intuitive visual hierarchies, diagrams, and stories that resonate with both technical and non-technical audiences.

Brand asset ecosystem and tools

• Design and maintain modular templates and reusable assets for presentations, one-pagers, briefs, case studies, recruiting collateral, event kits, and internal communications.
• Architect a navigable, well-organized asset library that speeds up delivery for Marketing, BD, and Recruiting.
• Continuously refine tools and templates based on adoption, feedback, and emerging needs.

Cross-functional creative partnership

• Partner with Marketing & Communications on brand campaigns, brand strategy, content, social, and executive communications.
• Partner with Business Development and Capture on pursuit storytelling, proposal design, customer demos, and conference presence.
• Partner with HR on candidate-facing materials, recruiting campaigns, onboarding experiences, and employer brand assets.
• Partner with Facilities and Engineering to ensure physical spaces, hardware displays, and signage reflect Castelion's visual standards.
• Facilitate working sessions that help teams articulate objectives and translate them into creative briefs, concepts, and visual narratives.

Team leadership and studio operations

• Provide day-to-day direction, feedback, and mentorship for graphic artist to help grow their craft, speed, and judgment.
• Establish clear intake, scoping, prioritization, and review workflows so the Brand Studio stays focused on the highest-impact work while still handling urgent needs.
• Set and uphold quality standards for all visual output, ensuring work is on-brief, on-time, on-brand, and appropriate for our customers and mission.

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in visual design, brand systems, art direction, or closely related roles, with a portfolio that shows strong visual storytelling, systems thinking, and multi-format execution.
• Demonstrated experience owning or evolving a visual identity system and building reusable design infrastructure (templates, libraries, guidelines) that others rely on.
• Proficiency in Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop) with excellent layout, typography, and information design skills.
• Experience collaborating directly with cross-functional partners such as marketing, communications, business development, engineering, and HR/People.
• Strong communication and presentation skills; comfortable explaining design rationale, giving and receiving feedback, and influencing decisions with non-design stakeholders.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Experience in defense, aerospace, autonomy, robotics, or other deep-tech sectors.
• Experience supporting capture/proposal efforts, or government/DoW customers from a creative and visual storytelling perspective.
• Experience with large-format or environmental graphics, signage, and event or experiential branding and activations.
• Familiarity with mid-century modern design and Space Age futurism, and interest in applying these influences to a contemporary defense brand.
• Comfort with basic video editing, motion design, or storyboarding for short-form explainers or sizzle content.
• Active or eligible for a U.S. security clearance.

All employees are granted long-term stock incentives as part of their employment as Castelion. All employees receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance, and the company offers three weeks of paid time off per year.

Leadership Qualities

Bias to Action and Creative Problem Solving. Desire and experience questioning assumptions in ways that lead to break through ideas that are ultimately implemented. Successfully bring in applicable processes/concepts/materials from other industries to achieve efficiency gains. Ability to personally resolve minor issues in development without requiring significant support.

High Commitment, High Initiative. A successful candidate will have a genuine passion for Castelion's mission and consistently look for ways to contribute to the company's technical goals and prevent hardware blockers. Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere. Strong sense of accountability and integrity.

Clear Communicator. Proactively communicates blockers. Trusted in previous roles to be voice of company with regulators, suppliers, gate keepers and customers. Capable of tactfully managing relationships with stakeholders to achieve company-desired outcomes without compromising relationships. Emails, IMs and verbal interactions are logical, drive clarity, and detailed enough to eliminate ambiguity.

ITAR Requirements:

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Employment with Castelion is governed on the basis of competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.