I wrote this article (on LinkedIn) a few days ago and I think is worth sharing in the IAMAG community for those facing similar challenges when it comes to Art Direction, no matter the craft, the background or the seniority level in any kind of production team.
Introduction
I'm Victor Santos, Art Director and Founder of Artistico Studio and I've been helping teams make games and define their visual identity at all levels, from Junior Artist to VP of a Start-up for over two decades now and no matter the size or scope of a project, and through lots of literature, talks and many many mistakes in my career... I've found some common issues amongst them and solutions to fix and elevate game development through art direction.
In some cases, the struggle is not because the art is bad or the team can't deliver but because it has no identity and/or the lack of articulation of that identity. Something that is even more relevant in small indie teams due to team size and velocity.
As one of my collaborators, Ben Smedstad, author of "Fun Factory - An insider's guide of the games industry" puts it:
"if you cannot communicate to others this aspect (or any aspect) of the game.. you are not ready to make it"
This quick guide is not only meant for Art Directors or Art Leads but also for anyone developing games in a cross-functional team regardless of platform or medium, from Web or Mobile to PC/Console or AR/VR.
I hope this article helps out when defining why it happens so you have some tools to quickly identify if this is happening on a project.
1. Common Pain-Points
As an Art Director, I see (and hear) this all the time when jumping into a project:
"The game feels too generic"
"Characters don't match the environments"
"Players are stuck in the UX flow"
"Cool assets but with no narrative connection"
"This is great but how do we scale?"
"Marketing assets don't match the experience"
As you can probably guess by the title of this article, this is not (usually) a sign of lack of talent, it's a lack of direction. And yes, this happens in almost every production at some point, this is both the curse and beauty of games development.
2. Why does it happen?
First, this is not abnormal. All teams and projects vary a lot, there's no single silver bullet that will solve this, this is crucial to know, from multi-billion dollar companies to small indie developers.
2.1 Milestone Chasing
Sometimes teams run from milestone to milestone, just focusing on "ticking the boxes" for each milestone, this happens quite often in teams that are under the "work-for-hire" paradigm that most of the time pushes visual polishing to the so-called "polishing phase" under the QA period at the end of a project, as seen on the left graph below.
Other games, perhaps creative-driven do it progresively (right graph above), a great reference for how a strong pre-production can impact the final product as the celebrated XCOM series did, please do check the GDC talk on "The Art Of Pre-Production", by Greg Foertsch.
2.2 "Unlimited" (but not really) money
On the other hand, there are teams have either a vast amount of money behind it or lacking an external production team (AKA a Publisher) making sure the work gets done, either way, teams could get easily lost in the weeds and focus on low-level decisions that are not that important when defining what the game needs to feel like.
"(...) is not (usually) a sign of lack of talent, it's a lack of direction."
In all these cases, the team's lack of focus takes them on a spiral without realizing that the game must feel coherent and intentional in its approach. Sometimes this gets caught just in time to course-correct without making a big impact on the production but others it might be too late.
3. How can this be solved?
Everyone that knows me or have worked with me knows that I am a very pragmatic and production-oriented Art Director that enjoys the "art of shipping things" more than anything else but as any other artist I can lose focus and follow the shiniest possible direction like everybody else.
To prevent that, it is crucial to know that and to build trust around the Art Leadership and with crucial cross-functional partners such as Production, QA, Engineering and Design to not only bounce ideas and get validation, XFN and stakeholder validation that will lead to building a shared vision for the project and the entire team from that point on, as artists we must elevate the tone and feel but also to stay in check with the reality of the production to make sure there is a game in the market at some point in the near future that everyone can be proud of.
No matter how cool this new piece of artwork you're working on is... if the game doesn't come out, nobody will get to see it.
I believe early milestones can be achieved whilst raising the bar little by little, teams don't need to risk a publishing contract or the entire production to have a unified look and feel, this is very imporant to know, no matter the art style, no matter how ground-breaking (or not) the game will be.
"(...) as artists, we must elevate the tone and feel but also to stay in check with the reality of the production"
Here are the steps I usually follow on how I guide teams through this:
Define the project Artistic Pillars
Build a visual Moodboard (and get buy-in from stakeholders)
Establish a Style Guide
Create a set of exploratory Concept Art to lock it down
All of which doesn't take months, it can be achieved (take my word on this) in only 1-4 weeks and it will make your game feel like a game.
4. Why Articulation is a big deal
As mentioned above, articulation is key in teams (feel free to ignore me you solo devs!), this is the core of our value as Art Directors, definitely not a nice to have but a mission critical, especially for indie and mid-size teams that sometimes lack of a robust internal art pipeline, which is normal in a fast-paced environment like that.
That said, and to boil it down:
The articulation of that direction, how clearly expressed it is, is they difference between a game that feels unified and one that comes across as a mash-up of (often times) good looking assets together.
Art Direction isn't just about making the game look good, it's about making it feel good, in other words, coherent and intentional.
4.1 "Art without direction is talent without target"
Every single time I've jumped into a team, whether as an external consultant or an internal hire, I've found a team of amazing artists, but sometimes without a clear visual language, they can pull in different directions.
Some environment artist feels like going into a gritty dystopian world
The Character Art team is into slightly stylised texturing
The UI Lead focuses on minimal and diegetic UI
The UX designer pursues a highly complex user journey
All great individually and a direction in itself but together, they clash, the art direction didn't get articulated effectively leading the team to drift away and for the game's visual identity to suffer.
When you clearly define, amongst other features:
Mood and tone (E.g. "otherwordly but hopeful")
Color temperature, correlation and contrast
Quality, shape language and materiality
Reference sources and “non-goals” sliders (what to do and not to do)
You give every artist and team member a north star so the game’s visual soul stays intact even across multiple hands or external freelancers.
4.2 Art Direction Clarity saves money
Studios sometimes think that there's no time to define style or to spend quality time on it and is better to just "make cool stuff" but:
Artistic Debt / Revisiting assets down the production line is expensive
Fixing trailers and marketing material leads to public and critics questioning and panicking
Reworking assets is a morale killer for any artist
Articulation early on, ideally on pre-production, and building trust and alignment can:
Save money from the budget
Compress and streamline feedback cycles
Build team morale
Articulation is the bridge between vision and execution, it’s the difference between a game that feels like a world and one that feels like a collection of assets. I often refer to the Japanese term "Sekaikan"(worldview), creating a world that exists beyond what you see something I find crucial for both Game Creation and Art Direction.
Think about not just making art but creating alignment, tone, emotion, and identity through words, visuals, and structure in the team.
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As everyone, I've learned trough painful moments and messing up, sometimes big time, so I hope this does help you and your growth and please do let me know if you've found it useful or you'd like for me to dive deeper into any point... or challenge anything!