Art Direction
Before knowing about the principles and techniques of art directors, it is important to know what art direction is?
That is very difficult question to answer. In the movies, art directors are generally responsible for creating the look and feel of the film. In print and advertising work, art directors come up with concepts, the innovative ideas which communicate with us on a gut level by way of such devices as metaphor, theme and symbolism. Some directors do little more than come up with these and make them available to the clients, while some of them oversee almost every aspect of the production and design process. Surprisingly, art direction is not often taught in schools and there is too little formal information available on the subject and it is often learned by practice.
The most important feature of art direction is the concept. No doubt, talent may be an issue when it comes to thinking about great concepts and your idea or your art director’s might not win you any awards but you can generate good ideas. Creativity is a process, and you have got to find your own. Following are some ideas that may be helpful to get you started:
1. Goals, goals, goals. You have heard about it all before, but there is a reason you have heard it all before. Good concepts bring about something. And that something should be the target to which you and your client have agreed upon. Always ask yourself a question, “will this idea help us to reach our goal?”
2. Make use of idea-stimulating techniques. Wonderful ideas might just come to someone in the shower, but the rest of us can get help by using techniques such as brainstorming. There are lots of books available on idea-generation and also the rules of brainstorming are quite well-known. At first you should generate large quantity of ideas. You only get good idea only when you come-up with huge number of ideas.
3. Once you have got your ideas on paper, put them on the critic’s hat. Select the best two or three ideas and flesh them out a little bit. Now you can allow yourself to think more regarding the actual design, color, type and layout. Test the ideas you have chosen against your objective. The best idea should always win but at the same time it should also stay flexible.
4. Keep the bird’s eye view. Don’t get too much involved in the details. Work like a sculptor. Start with a huge mass of ideas and process from there but at the same time keep looking at the whole through all phases of the project.
The most difficult part of art direction is perhaps the development of a creative and sound concept. Good design is attractive but good design based on a firm concept will help in making your sites much more memorable and effective, particularly when compared to competition.
