The Direction of Art .: Task Se7en :.

First of all i'd like to apologise for the rushed posting of two weekly tasks on the same day and secondly i'd like to apologise for falling behind to the degree that i'm rushing to catch up. In this task i've been asked to look at the Art Director role in a games production team. I guess that the Art Director in a production team is like the manager in a football team. The managers all have good football experience but you don't see them on the pitch. Same applies for Art Directors if my theory is correct. After years of experience in creating game art you let the young guns take over and survey things from the sidelines, using your experience to make sure everything runs smoothly. It's the Art Directors responsibility to ensure the team works together smoothly and efficiently. From the link supplied by Mr. Powell its easy to see that you need to stand out in what you do to be accepted in the Art Director role. Problem Solving skills, Communication, and Timekeeping are all of key importance for the job aswell as an impressive resume/CV and portfolio . . . there was me thinking Game Design would be a nice, non-competetive industry ^_^.

The Art Director in a games art production team is responsible for the young upcoming/wannabe game artists and it's his/her/its job to allocate each member certain jobs in response to each members strengths and weaknesses. For example one member of the team might stand out above the rest in 3d modelling and it would be the Art Director's job to pick up on this and take advantage of his strengths. It would be poor supervising if the concept artist ended up modelling the characters and the modeller was stuck doing market research. Therefore being able to pinpoint people's strengths would be of key importance in order to succeed and create a well-managed productions team.

Art Direction is quite similar in alot of fields such as Gaming, Films, Magazines etc. All are responsible for certain things like the projects art budget, keeping the initial idea, making sure the production team works together etc. Experience in the specific fields are a must and I guess its this that seperates the different types of art directors.

[What qualities do you think you?d need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future?] Communication! This quality is a must and it's the thing employee's would be looking for as soon as you walked into the interview. Good communication and leadership are extremely important qualities when it comes to leading and keeping together a production team. You need to be someone the members can come to but you need to ensure they respect you and appreciate that your the production leader. These two elements would need to be developed should I wish to become an Art Director in the future. At the present moment I don't really show any signs of good verbal communication or any leadership qualities but these skills can be developed through university, work experience, and a confident frame of mind.