Elements of game design Part 2 – Art Direction for games

As I mentioned earlier that one of the main elements of game design is Immersing the player into the world. Now someone has to direct the art for the game, and that person is the Art Director.

The job as the art directors includes the monumental responsibility for the whole visual style, quality and tone of the game, as well as the objects, level, effects, and character. So yeah it’s kind of scary to think you might be working on million dollar budgets so you have virtually no margin for error. But also fun, because in a way it’s the director’s image of the game coming to life.

Here’s another interesting article on gamasutra

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

Diana Davies talks about the roles an art director has and one of the main things that struck me is the amount of communication, organization and teamwork skills that were key to being a director. For a game to be successful the artists and programmers MUST communicate well and work as a team rather than blame or resent one another for doing something wrong. But being In the world of geeks and recluses who had probably spent most of their lives in front of screens getting better at 3D or programming, means that they lack in some communication skills, which could cause problems later down the line.

“For the most part, I haven't experienced too many cases where I could not approach a programmer and work with him or her to resolve a technical issue. I've always made it clear that I respect the person I'm approaching for help and admit freely when I can't work something out on my own.”

Time management is essential to the job and everything must be pretty organised and written down just to keep everything in order and  a simple thing like not having all the files correctly would increase the amount of time taken on the project by a vast amount and leave it in a jumbled pile of mess.

She goes on to say the toughest job for the artist is to evaluate their skills and effort in the job and if they aren’t meeting up with expectations they have to make them aware and motivate them to work harder because essentially that’s time and money being wasted. But with all of that comes the stress and problems within the team.

It’s also the art director’s job to keep the morale up and keep everyone working as a team and to solve petty conflicts swiftly without any hiccups.

You have to take in the team member’s level of stress and to never lose your temper. It certainly isn’t an easy skill to master but it’s very important for directors and lead designers for any job for that matter. The games industry works with a lot of trial and error and there can be consequences for forgetting a step or doing something stupid because of that. So being able to spot and fix mistakes is key to being a great manager.

They need to sell their game as well, because as most people nowadays, they judge the game by its visuals and cover rather than the game play. Their job is to make sure the whole team creates visually stimulating environments, characters, and artwork in general.

So yeah the job as an art director is pretty huge and risky and takes a very strong minded person to run it. Its pretty similar to being a film or TV director in the way of having the same responsibilities for your team and coming up with the idea’s and structure of the game/movie/show.

One day maybe I’d like to give the art director job a shot, but that would be after years of experience within the industry as a normal artist and when I have the confidence and determination to lead a group of people. But it certainly won’t be easy at all.