wow! art direction

What does an Art Director do? Who are they responsible to? Do you think it?s a creative role? How is art direction in Games similar to or different from Film, for example? What qualities do you think you?d need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future?



An art director controls and focuses the crew on the main aspect of a game he/she chooses the direction and style of the game, without an art director there would be no focus and with many different artists there would be many different styles making the game seem like a patchwork quilt nothing would fit or go together. Different parts of the game wouldn’t go with others and the way they feel and look would be totally out of place with the previous section of the game. Art directors keep the artists together controlling there direction and keeping them in tune with each other much like an instrument, if one string is out the whole song would be awful and out of tune. As I’ve always been told, people see the bad things easier than the good so if there is one small mistake people will see that and forget about the good aspects.

Of course it’s a creative role, art directors choose the mood and style of a game if they don’t like it its not in the game. Without a creative art director the game would be flat and lifeless, true an art director does do the boring paper work but he also has creative input in the way the artists work and what they can produce is decided by the art director.

Art direction is very much identical to art direction in a film as art directors focus the workers just like the film director, art directors control the mood and style like a film director, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if an art director could change places with a film director and pull of the same quality of work.

Being able to focus people is a big quality an art director needs, if you cant keep the artists working to the same standard and style then you are useless. Being able to convey ideas easily and quickly through speech and sketching is a useful and essential tool an art director needs, if an art director cant get across the meaning behind a game then how can the artists.