What Does an Art Director Do?

An Art Director is an individual who supervises the artistic direction of a creative project. The assignments can range from a book designing at a small publishing company, designing corporate advertisements, to deciding the visual look and feel of a movie. Any business that requires a great deal of artistic talent to arrive at a specific design for a finished product will most likely have an Art Director in the team to ensure that each assignment successfully meets the mandatory requirements.

An Art Director will choose an appropriate line up of artists either from the in house staff or from other sources. The director will then organize the team, discuss key points that need to be addressed for the project and make sure that everyone is on the same page when working on the project as per the clients desired specifications.

There are several steps that an Art Director must follow when working on an assignment with his/her creative team. Firstly, art directors need to have an understanding of what is being requested of them. For example, if the project is to design the artwork for a children's book, the creative team and Art Director must keep the material appropriate for a young audience. The Art Director needs make sure that the design team sticks with child appropriate content and must consider other visually important elements. These elements can include; bright friendly colors, a whimsical style, and illustrations that a child could relate to. An Art Director also has to keep in mind that visuals are needed to help propel the story. If the book is for a toddler, then the director might presume that the child may not yet be able to read and therefore the artwork should be strong enough to give the child an understanding as to what the book is about.

The Director must have a keen thinking process, must be creative and must be able to organize a good team of artists to have a successful result.

After the initial process of considering what the project needs to involve, the Art Director will continue to work closely with design team. Storyboards and sketches are used, the Director will ensure that the team is constantly updated with the progress, and will pretty much keep an eye on the project from beginning to end. This ensures that the end result will meets the standards and expectations of the final review board.

If the work is not as the client wanted, it will be rejected and it becomes the Art Director's responsibility to meet up with the creative team, fix the issues and resubmit the work.

Art Directors are found in multiple occupations and regardless of the field of media they are working in, i.e. the film industry, video game design, or book illustration, they are an essential element that makes it possible to convey a message through visuals to the target audience.

 

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