DESIGN & BEAUTY: A LOOK AT ART DIRECTION

Hello humans,

I rather enjoy sitting down and writing out some of my thoughts, it really helps me reflect and
express myself at the same time. Two birds with one stone (I’m a monster). By the way, I stole this article title (not the subtitle) from a self help deck of cards by Tom Peters. I haven’t actually read them but I did like the name. So thank you Tom, for helping me with the title of this article!

Anyways, let me move on to topic I wanted to talk about.

Art Direction

This is a topic that sort of popped up a lot recently (for me) as I was working on a few things. I wanted to talk about music direction, game design, and a lot of topics at once but I decided to talk specifically about art direction instead. It’s often an overlooked and underappreciated topic. So what is Art Direction? well here’s one definition,

“The process of managing or overseeing graphic design”

Seems simple enough right? You might be wondering why this is so important, we know first hand by creating things ourselves or by being part of some sort of creative process, that we are ALL often influenced by some higher goal (desired art direction) to some extent. We often strive to achieve some look and feel. Something that would be aesthetically pleasing yet complements other areas as well, if applicable, such as music direction, writing, animation, and so on. The most ideal goal is to satisfy YOUR OWN GOALS or your TEAM GOALS. There’s one thing I always stress and that is to not pander to your audience! Your goal should be to explore your own concepts first before you start considering what may interest your audience. Think of the later as a treat, something you would consider later. By doing this you’ll stay true to your own vision, it’ll help keep you motivated and working steadfastly on your project(s).



Studying art has amazing benefits, I don’t just mean picking up a pen / pencil and learning how to draw. I don’t mean grabbing a mouse or tablet and learning how to create pixel art. You can pick up a brush and splash paint on a canvas all day, without some level of observation it would be darn right impossible to improve. Despite what I just said, physically practicing art and learning has huge benefits and would provide a unique level of understanding that is unattainable otherwise. I found that helpful for me personally and even the process can be fun and fulfilling.



However, I feel it is crucial to yet again reiterate that a keen eye for art is necessary regardless. If you’re not going to be creating anything yourself then you should at least learn to identify qualities that make up good art, the ability to study and NOTICE each intricate level of design is truly magical. It’s amazing to have a sense of understanding how things were created... Even if we can’t pinpoint all the finer details. It allows you to truly understand and appreciate the work. Even more so, this skill allows you to analyze your OWN work and apply your own magical touch, giving it a unique appeal. You ever notice how some art appears to look bad but has values that still make it interesting? These artists sometime aren't as refined at the mechanical process (not yet) but they may have an understanding that is above their physical capabilities. Perhaps they understand art direction, using the set of graphical assets in a unique way that "works" with their project.

They are two separate skills you can develop, this is what I’m trying to highlight in this article. That being creative and brainstorming ideas like selecting unique locations, steering away from typical settings, spending some time at adding cool things in the background or playing with the perspective of an image or scene... These things go a long way.



So why is Art Direction so important?

Some of us just shrug it off and decide that achieving their IDEAL goals are too hard, with regards to the visual art of course. For example, some game designers opt to just focus on gameplay and stats and what not. This isn’t a problem at all. For those people who love to argue that games are about “gameplay” I would actually like to challenge that statement. I feel games are about the experience. How do you provide a better experience in a game? Practically any factor of a game can make it appealing, the writing, the art, the music, there are people out there who can appreciate almost any element of a game. What the game designer should be striving for is to explore a concept and remain true to their concept while ATTEMPTING to add their own flare, even in areas they aren't experienced with. If your goal is to create a game that focuses on gameplay then more power to you.

I want to stress that though this is a perfectly normal and admirable goal... I really feel that it is NOT an excuse (in itself) to totally ignore other areas of the game. With a good sense of art direction for example, a trained eye for art... One can make massive improvements to their game’s visual appeal with very little effort. The more effort you put in and the more skill that is acquired AND applied, the better the results. Though, if you or your team aren't fond about working on visual appeal, then there are things you can still do to at least make your game stand out.

I hope my message is getting across, you can do a lot really. I.E: editing resources, creating resources, maybe adding little details like animations or perhaps selecting UNIQUE settings that really improve the experience overall.



If you’re using free resources, there is literally nothing stopping you from editing them in SOME fashion, this is probably the easiest thing to do, you can mix and match resources if you don’t actually physically want to create assets, this takes a little tact though and some editing to make sure everything fits. What you can also do is arrange the graphics in a unique fashion, find your style, experiment (try). Perhaps maybe give sprites additional animations. Animations bring life to sprites, one of my friends believes animations is the number one way to bring life to a game. Moving on, perhaps adjust colors and add obscure objects, they don't even have to make sense just experiment.

Adding your own flare is important, you don’t have to be the greatest artist... Developing a trained eye for art can take you far alone, it isn't easy but when you are absorbing in media... Animations, Film, Games, Art... Take the time and study them. Ask yourself a bunch of questions regarding the medium used, what's happening with the perspective, or the colors, etc. Learning how to create art is made easier when you’re talented, but art itself is a practice that can be learned through studying. Obviously this isn’t always the case but you can improve regardless, that’s the point.

The reason why I wanted to talk about this topic was because I felt that art direction is a powerful tool, that once grasped, can take you light years ahead and improve your visual aspect of your work... Thus improving the experience which I mentioned is what game designers should strive to do. Let me reiterate, I'm not saying games need to have good art to succeed. I'm saying good art direction goes a long way, and it hardly goes unnoticed. If it does, email me and I'll raise hell.

Ocean recently wrote an article analyzing “Photo realism”. You can find his article here:




I feel that this false idea that achieving photo realism is what is necessary / ideal for future of gaming... It’s ludicrous, uninspiring to say the least and I’m truly not looking forward to it.



A friend of mine (Ciel) pointed out that since Xbox360 / PS3 generation, commercial games have become streamlined into this blur of sameness. I agree wholeheartedly, instead of games with actual gameplay what we’ve seen time and time again are games infested with brain dead tutorials, boring art direction (a sea of brown terrain, ugly filters, and horrible attempts at implementing "photo realism" elements). Even the gameplay has suffered as the majority of console / ported releases have almost no gameplay, and when they do they aren't very entertaining. Instead, what we now often see are scenarios that have the player simply moving forward and occasionally experiencing the ever so popular quick time events (QTE). Yeah, and a bunch of prerendered cut-scenes.


The amount of realism or polygon inserted does not bring life to a game. I’m a firm believer that art direction is so much more important when it comes to visual prowess. The setting, what is occurring, the art style, the general vibe, these all contribute to improving the experience.





You enjoyed the read, ne?

Let me know how you guys feel as well alright, yeah. Please do that alright ALRIGHT?

If you have any specific questions you want to ask me, feel free to email or visit my blog (contact info there as well).

http://vibrantsea.tumblr.com