Creative Director (Digital Play)

We're looking for a Creative Director to help shape the future of Pok Pok! If you love making things, have a great eye for interactive design, and know how to bring a creative team together around an idea, we'd love to meet you. You'll help guide a growing world of digital toys that encourage kids to explore, experiment and follow their imaginations.

About Pok Pok

Pok Pok is on a mission to raise the next generation of creative thinkers. We're the team behind the Apple Design Award-winning Montessori app, Pok Pok, and were named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025. Our award-winning digital toys and videos empower children to think outside the box, dream big, and explore their creativity in a mindful way. We believe screen time can be thoughtful, educational, and just as imaginative as the toys we grew up playing with on the floors of our living rooms.

Pok Pok is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We encourage people of all races, religions, genders, abilities and sexual orientations to apply. We want the products we develop to reflect the diversity of the world we live in, and it starts with our own team.

About the Role

Pok Pok is a growing world of open-ended digital toys for kids aged 2 to 8. Every toy is an opportunity to create something surprising, playful and meaningful, and we're looking for someone to help guide that creative work every day.

As our Creative Director, you'll lead the day-to-day creative direction of the Pok Pok app, working closely with artists, designers and developers to bring new toys and experiences to life. You'll work closely with and report to our VP of Product & Creative Strategy, who will continue to guide the broader product and creative vision. You'll take ownership of bringing that vision to life, making creative decisions, guiding the team and helping shape how Pok Pok evolves.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who loves both making things and helping others make great things. You'll sketch ideas, guide design decisions, review work, playtest with kids and help the team find creative solutions to interesting problems. You'll also partner closely with our Producer to balance creative ambition with the realities of development.

We're looking for someone with strong creative instincts, a collaborative spirit and the confidence to make decisions independently while keeping the bigger picture in mind. You'll have the freedom to bring your own perspective to the work, challenge ideas and help shape how Pok Pok continues to grow.

This is a hybrid role based in downtown Toronto. We're looking for someone in the GTA who can join us in the office a couple of days a week.

What You'll Do

Creative Direction

• Lead the day-to-day creative direction of Pok Pok, working with the team on early concepts and design explorations through to finished toys and updates.
• Translate our broader creative vision into clear direction, briefs and actionable feedback.
• Support and guide the visual, interactive and experiential design of our toys, making sure they feel playful, intuitive and distinctly Pok Pok.
• Lead creative reviews, identify opportunities to improve the work and make confident creative decisions that keep development moving.
• Bring your own ideas, references and creative perspective to the table, helping us continually evolve what Pok Pok can be.
• Work closely with our VP of Product & Creative Strategy to explore new ideas, align on creative priorities and turn longer-term ambitions into meaningful experiences.

Creative Leadership & Collaboration

• Help lead and collaborate with a creative team of artists, designers and developers, supporting great work across disciplines.
• Give thoughtful, constructive feedback that helps people grow and makes the work better.
• Partner with our Producer to plan and prioritize creative work within our three-week development sprints.
• Understand the strengths and constraints of our art, design and development pipelines, and help find creative solutions that work across them.
• Foster a collaborative creative environment where ideas are shared openly, people build on each other's thinking and everyone feels comfortable contributing to the work.

Play, Test & Learn

• Get hands-on with the work through sketching, prototyping, reviewing builds and exploring new interactions.
• Participate in playtesting with kids and use those observations to inform creative decisions.
• Use product insights, player behaviour and performance data to understand what's working, what isn't and where we can improve.
• Collaborate with other teams to support launches, seasonal updates and new opportunities for creative play.

Who You Are

• You have 6+ years of experience in games, apps or interactive media, including at least 2 years directing creative work on a shipped product.
• You have a strong creative background in a discipline like illustration, animation, game design, UX or interaction design, and a great eye for design and craft.
• You understand what makes interactive experiences engaging, intuitive and fun, and know how to communicate those qualities to a team.
• You're a confident creative leader who can make decisions, give clear feedback and help people do their best work.
• You enjoy getting hands-on with ideas, whether that's sketching, mocking up interactions or jumping into a build to see how something feels.
• You're curious about how young children think, explore and play, and care about creating experiences that respect their intelligence and imagination.
• You're comfortable working across creative and technical disciplines, and understand how tools like Toon Boom, Figma and Unity fit into the development process.
• You can balance creative instinct with feedback, research and data, and you're happy to change your mind when you learn something new.
• You're a generous collaborator who enjoys building on other people's ideas, welcomes different perspectives and can confidently take ownership of creative decisions.
• You're based in the GTA and able to work from our downtown Toronto office a couple of days a week.

Bonus Points if You:

• Have experience creating games, apps or interactive experiences for young children.
• Have a background in illustration, animation or playful interaction design.
• Have worked with Montessori principles, early childhood development or play-based learning.
• Have experience with live products that grow and evolve through ongoing releases and experimentation.
• Have hands-on experience with Unity, Toon Boom or Figma.
• Love toys, games, unusual creative references and figuring out what makes something fun.

More About Us

We're a growing team of passionate, experienced creators based in Toronto. We love animals, music, travel, video games, kids, cooking, yoga, building robots, going to museums, talking about things we're watching right now and playing with old toys. We're from all walks of life and are convinced that's our secret sauce. We're a mom-founded company, too!

Other awesome things about this role:

• You'll have the unique opportunity to build, grow and make your mark joining a fast-growing start-up early on
• Work from our beautiful brick-and-beam office in the downtown core within walking distance to the Eaton Centre, St. Lawrence Market and Union Station
• Flexible hybrid working arrangements
• 3 weeks of paid vacation plus a 2-week holiday office closure, because life outside of work matters
• Competitive compensation including employee stock options and health benefits
• We love field trips, playtesting with kids in our community, toy research, science centres and museums. We have no fun at all.

How to apply

Apply at the link above and share with us what you've built. Your application should include:

• A portfolio or reel of work you creatively directed. Tell us what you owned, who you directed, what shipped, and what you'd do differently now.
• A short note on one Pok Pok toy you'd change and why. We call each game or experience in Pok Pok a "toy," so pick one that interests you! We want to see how you think, not a pitch deck.
• A short video introduction sharing something interesting about yourself that we can't find on your resume. If you include a short video intro, we guarantee we'll watch it!
• Your resume

A real human will read your application. If we're interested in moving forward, you'll get a very enthusiastic message from us.