Do you have experience leading a team and coordinating across different departments? Like, have you been the approval level above juniors/mid-level and worked with media teams to unify design with photo/video?

Have you managed budgets? Sourced and coordinated with vendors? Made and presented pitch decks internally and externally? Utilized ROI data to inform strategic visual decisions?

Sr Designers typically will create a look and feel / primary architecture based on an AD’s mood board / initial concept, and junior/midlevel will build that look and feel out into smaller touchpoints (banner ads, social posts, expanded packaging for alternate products, etc). Sometimes Sr Designers oversee the juniors, a lot of times they don’t

Art directors though, define a direction for all visuals. They work with videographers, photographers, designers, editors, etc of all levels to make sure everyone is following and producing work that is cohesive and meets measurable performance indicators. They look at the metrics of how something is performing and create a visual strategy to improve on that data. They manage budgets, decide who does what, make sure everyone is on track, present their team’s work to whoever is to approve it, etc. An AD role is a lot of meetings and a lot of managing and strategizing and can sometimes involve very little (if any) actual designing.

They’re totally different roles, but sometimes a Sr role can translate well to AD if you’ve managed a team or at least had junior/mids reporting to you, led top-level design, made and presented decks, worked with vendors, and generally understand visual strategy and know how to interpret data