The Art Director?

The Art Director is the top position available to any graphic designer, they work closely with the games designer to convert the written design document into something visual that the designers can work from. The Art Director gets the first word over every possible visual part of the game. It is their job to design a plan for every asset, tree, object, character or scene. They need to understand every scene from every point of view of the character in order to relay these ideas as orders to the team of designers working beneath him/her. This person also designs on the colours, mood and setting to every part of the game. Although the Art Director may not actually “create” much of the game, it is their direction and ideas that are seen through other designers work.

   Basically the crème of the crop, or as said in one article “The Captain of the ship.” To be an Art Director would make you one of the top in design within a gaming company. However this doesn’t mean this job role is particularly creative. Just because it has “Art” in the title doesn’t mean it has to be that creative. I believe this job role is a balance of logic and creativity as the director must decide on how the world looks, but they are also very restricted to follow the design document they were given. They do however, have the power to allow their designers some freedom when working to design some of their own assets.

 They would have to also work within boundaries such as budgets. They can’t allow small games assets like barrels to have a high texture sheet such as the ones given to the characters, however they must be given a budget big enough to still make them look convincing. The Art Director must also decide on the style of game elements. They must be clear and precise on what their designers create. You wouldn’t tell your designers to simply make a tree if you are making a stylised game as you must explain how that tree is to be created to fit the style. An overly realistic tree in a game such as Okami would be majorly out of place, however would fit perfectly in a game like Crysis which strives to be as realistic as possible.

  Communication between the Art Director and their designers is crucial to a stress free environment as the designers would know exactly what it is they are doing rather than running around like a headless chicken.

 I believe an Art Directors job is very similar to that of a film director, both need to know everything there is to know about what is being created. They have the final say of what stays and what goes, or how it is changed. Both are incredibly important people and both are needed to make the final product work. Everyone needs some kind of leader to give them direction, if they think about it in a religious way, many Christians follow Gods word and they allow that to dictate what they do in life, similar to how graphic designers follow everything the Art Director says within their jobs. People need direction. Although this is probably a bit of an extreme way to prove a point I believe it is accurate.

I also believe that a job as an Art Director would be hard to come by as so many would apply. After all, it is one of the top spots in the games design industry. Leadership skills would be critical considering you would have a group of people working to your word. You would need a vast understanding of colours, mood and lighting as well as understanding stylisation. You would have to be able to think outside the box and also be skilled at problem solving, as chances are there would be a lot of problems figuring out how to balance out the budget to produce a high quality product. It would need to be someone highly experienced, I can only hope to gain such experience as I go along during this course and later on in working life. There’s always a chance that I could reach such a position if I work and strive hard enough.

Which includes keeping up with the blogs and getting more motivation to get work done. I am thoroughly enjoying this course so far and don’t want to jeopardize myself so early on, more organisation is most definitely needed here.

  

 References:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3115/common_methodologies_for_lead_.php

http://my.safaribooksonline.com/159200430X/ch11lev1sec2?portal=oreilly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_director