Art directorate and design

^{Illustration by Kevin Cornell}

The imminent appearance of art directorship on the Web is one of the latest trends in interactive design. Currently, several sites are dedicated to this event. There are even plug-ins for these sites. Sadly, however, many designers do not understand the difference between design and art directorship ; even more sad is that many art directors don't see her either. But art directorship creates the basis for design, it adds humanity to design.

Translation: Randall Roffe
Translation sponsor: Aiken Studio

Art directorate is not blogazine

A popular article, The Death of the Blog Post, talks about a “blog journal,” a mix of journal articles and blog posts. The article states: outstanding designers said a new word and began to make the concept of " art-directorship " on the Internet. The article states that the art direction in the "blog-magazine" is much more than the unique design of each blog post. The term "blog journal" is often confused by art directors . It is like saying, “Look! This blog is like a magazine, because every post is different! ”Often,“ blog magazines ”are just“ dressed up ”blog posts.
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Magazines are not just created for the individual design of articles. Their goal is to combine the visual image and text to enhance the expressiveness of the narrative. A variety of designs are the result of this aspiration, and not just diversity for the sake of diversity. In the staff of the magazine, art directors and copywriters spend a lot of time on brainstorming in search of various ways to enhance the story — from choosing a design style and relevant content features to honing the key of the story.

To transfer this process to the practice of web design, we need other structures that would give flexibility within a given format. Their germ can be considered unique fields for user styles within content management systems at the level of a separate blog post. However, the ability to automatically create unique custom CSS files does not mean that this publication has passed the stage of artistic control (control of the art director ). Art direction goes beyond user blog posts. This is something more. Art direction raises and enhances expressiveness.

What is what

Artistic leadership brings clarity and certainty; it helps our work to transmit a certain signal to a specific group of people. Art directorship combines art and design in order to create a cultural and emotional response. It has an impact on movies, music, websites, magazines - almost everything that causes us to respond. Without artistic supervision, we are left with dry, sterile episodes that are quickly forgotten. Can an ad in the New York subway about homeless people make you want to donate money? Why do you want to pray Clarice Starling to turn around , despite the fact that you know that she can not hear you? Why do candles turn ordinary food into a romantic evening? Art directorship refers to the challenge of corresponding emotions, to creating an emotional connection with what you see and experience.

By contrast, design is the technical realization of this connection. Are these colors combined? Is the length of the text line convenient for long reading? Is the photo cutting? Does typographical hierarchy work? How well balanced is this composition?

If I tell my wife that I love her, but I do it with a frowning face, her impression will be ambiguous. If I say this indifferently, looking at the TV, she just won't believe me. But when I say this with a sincere smile and a bouquet of flowers - my thought is clear. In this example, my love is art-directorship , whereas my smile and the deep red color of roses are design. They work hand in hand to convey a thought emotionally and physically. Design is the perfection of technology; Art directorship refers to the important, but sometimes not quite palpable emotions that inspire the design.

Here are some tips on approaches to design and artistic oversight, as you understand the difference between them in your work:

Distinctive approaches to art directorship and design

TOOL	ART DIRECTOR	DESIGN
Colour	Is this color scheme suitable for this brand? Does it fit the situation? Bright colors may not be appropriate for the sad message.	Do these colors look good together? Do they play? Is each color the best choice for a given environment, for example, the “Pantone” color set for printing?
Print	Why did you choose this font? How does the form of letters convey meaning without the words themselves? Comic Sans may be too ridiculous, and Helvetica may be too boring.	Does my set of font sizes create the necessary visual hierarchy? Is the font sufficiently saturated for it to be used in this context?
Composition	How balanced should this composition be? Balanced compositions are pleasant, but often passive. Unbalanced compositions are often unstable and cause anxiety, but visually they are more interesting.	Do I have even fields? Is there a natural rhythm in the images that will guide the eye through the whole piece?
Concept	How well do visual elements support and convey the mood of the brand? What signal or what theme is the design?	How well do visual elements fit the brand’s recommendations for logo placement, appropriate printing and color schemes?
Generally	Does this create the right mood?	Does it look good?

Don't take my word for it

I asked several of my friends to comment on the differences between design and art directorship . Here is what they said about this:

“Design refers to solving problems, regardless of whether you are a designer or art director . These two roles are distinguished by the fact that the designer is more concerned about the performance, while the art director is more concerned about the strategy underlying this performance. ”
- Springbox art director Phil Coffman

“Design is“ how ”, it is the basis of communication, the process and execution of print, color, scale and placement. The art director is “why”, this is the concept and solutions that will wrap the whole product. Beyond this is participation, sensation and politics. ”
- Senior Art Director of “ Big Spaceship ” Jarrod Riddle (Jarrod Riddle)

“The function of design is different from the function of art directorship . Art directors are expected to provide a concept. Designers are expected to implement the idea and implement the concept. However, it is very important to remember that they almost never differ as black and white. Designers function as art directors , and art directors design. Based on my experience, this process occurs in close cooperation. Ideas fill the concept and vice versa. ”
- Design Director " Gridplane " DD Hudge (JD Hooge)

“ Art directorship is a decision filter; through it you miss any design choice. Begin by defining a general state of mind. Everything - text, photography, user interface elements and even the kitchen sink should be checked against the ideal. I like to present it as a magical kaleidoscopic mirror. It helps to determine which direction I should take, making difficult decisions in design. ”
- Creative Director of “ Happy Cog ” Christopher Cashdollar

Three hats

I once taught graphic design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In the room, which I borrowed from the creative director of Happy Cog, Christopher Cashdollar, I wanted to arrange for students to choose strips of paper from each of the three hats. In the first hat there were leaves with tasks, in the second hat there were leaves with various design elements, and in the third hat there was art directorate . The student’s assignment might have been a redesign for the graphic design department’s home web page . Design elements could affect the color and style of the print, while art directorship required defining the design as “happy” or “joyful”. Another student could get design elements for development, which included an earthy color scheme and typefaces for creating a menu for a restaurant, whose art directors required creating an image of elitism and formality.


Fig. 1. The stereotypical approach to explaining the difference between art directorship and design gave some results for students.

This is rather a theoretical rather than a practical exercise, but for students it began to develop a sense of which combinations are more natural: bright colors are more natural when working with “happy” works. A typographic set, for example, is a design element that naturally gives a sense of a properly designed work.

It is also important that students begin to understand the special, exciting possibilities of unusual combinations. How can you create a “happy” website with dark colors? You can create a unique style of illustration that combines “happiness” and dark colors! How can I make a proper type of brochure without a proper typographic headset? Try a moderate sized light serif font on a dark background with ornaments. Although these are stereotypical examples, the students developed a sense of how to make the world around them see what they wanted him to see (and this even in spite of working in a rigid framework). Art directorship goes beyond the framework; in fact, he thrives on them.

Bad design, good art direction

Search for the image for the term " happy birthday ". You will find some of the most horrific design crimes ever committed: very aggressive color combinations and repulsive print.

Yes, they all convey the essence: fun, celebration and happiness. Most of them have a bad design, but we all know internally how art directories should have a happy birthday greeting card. It is not by chance that they all come close to similar color schemes, typographical solutions and text, if they can be called that at all. Obviously, joyful art directorship almost dictates design elements. The basics of design, the same as “grid systems” and “golden section” do not quite correspond to the terms of customary use, but many people implicitly understand art directorship - it is in their blood.


Fig. 2. From this design, I cry with bloody tears, but art-directorship is right here.

Regarding art directors

Large differences in the role of art director reinforce the misunderstanding of the difference between art direction and design. Following one extreme, some agencies hire art directors who do not know how to design, but who understand it enough to give instructions to other designers. On the other hand, in some agencies, the position of art director is the next logical step towards paying for an experienced designer. Most jobs are somewhere in between.

Many small agencies for various reasons do not hire art directors . This fact gives us the wrong idea that art directorship is an optional part of the creative process. However, the opposite is also true. Art directorship is so important that it is never missed, it is simply unintentionally and subconsciously performed by designers who are not ready to perform such duties.

In his brilliant book “ Art-directorship as it is!” Stephen Heller (Steven Heller) and Veronique Vienne highlight the work of the art director :

“ Art directors should carry out one fundamental activity - they should direct. If they do not, they are not art directors . Although this should not imply that art directors should be arrogant or tough, in fact this means that they have a “divine right of expertise.” The art director may not always have the last word ... but he or she must remain the final arbiter of art and design. The first rule is decision making, the second is making the right decision ... “

“Every art director should start with the belief that his or her job is to lead, not follow.” To guide, rather than be guided, to be, as far as possible, an influential figure, and not to take the position of least resistance. ”

See and feel

Once I took part in a project in which several designers sold independent concepts to the same client. Built on the freelance model, our work was non-hierarchical, more complementary than competitive, but we often lacked a common look at each project.

Each designer was responsible for art directorship and design (not to mention the creative direction, a completely different topic) of our respective compositions. As a young but experienced designer, I already had an understanding of the elements necessary to create the desired design: color, print, layout, and so on. But to be a good art director , I didn’t have enough experience, especially it wasn’t enough to to guide yourself. Without supervision of my work by the art director, I produced products with a good design, but with a bad attitude to quality.

Many consider the words “to see” and “to feel” synonymous with using them one instead of another. Creating a design is creating a “look”. “Feeling”, however, requires special attention from an experienced art director to ensure the integrity of the image conveyed.


Fig. 3. Thank God, the client had the wisdom to reject my page layout. While the design can be well executed - rich typography, a harmonious combination of colors, a strict grid, a dynamic composition - art directorship is not quite suitable for this non-profit company. The design is too fashionable, the heroic part in the title conveys the idea awkwardly, and the spray of paint has nothing in common with this brand.

Today, the art direction of the New York Times site is the same as it was in 1997: minimalistic and unobtrusive. It allows the reader to objectively interpret the presentation with a slight influence of visual material. Design may change over time, but art directorship remains. When I asked Khoi Vinh, the former design director of the New York Times, he stressed the need to update the design with the eternal preservation of art directorship :

“Once a month, once a week, even once a day - this is the frequency of updating the printed edition. Now everything is not so - the digital edition is updated as quickly as possible, it is updated constantly. This is not a person's rhythm, this is a machine rhythm, and it makes excessive art directorship economically unprofitable. ”

Fig. 4. With a minimal art direction that remains constant, the design of the New York Times is updated over time to meet the changing needs of readers.

Appreciating moments

Today we do not apply art directorship to a greater extent than before. Steven Hay's Art Director on the World Wide Web article is applicable today to the same extent as six years ago. We have almost reached perfection in the art of pattern design, the structure of the design in which we want to have a conversation - but we are still retraining how to design pages and create layouts. In an interview with 8 Persons , Ian Coyle says:

“I realized the power of the actual creation of the moment: the moment of pause, the moment of reading, the moment of deliberation. In any song, in any work of art you cannot use only high notes. You need to create moments when people can listen to it and experience excitement. It is even necessary to include moments of silence in your work. ”

It is here that art directorial is thriving: deciding at which moments to shout from the top of a mountain, and which moments to keep secrets in silence.

Well done

We have defined the concept of "art-directorship" , but how does it look in practice? When you find a place in which the story and the design support each other and give the opportunity to shine the idea, you experience strong feelings. However, quite rarely perfect art-directorship and design on the Internet are inaccessible.


Fig. 5. Site form (Launchlist): a winning combination of art direction , text and design.

Let's take a look at the Launchlist site and its launch form. The launch metaphor of the space shuttle informs us about the decisions behind the feeling, appearance and messages. A sky-like background and slow moving clouds are by no means an arbitrary choice. The combination of metallic interface colors resembles a real control panel. Smart sliders (yes / no) instead of tick boxes give the feeling that you are performing a process, and do not switch the browser elements used by default. The type of messages, including “launch not recommended” or “launch!” Enhances the simulated space flight control environment. All the details reinforce the impression.

This is a wonderful example of art directorship - it includes our imagination.

Changes life

When my grandfather died, I wrote about it to my friends. I wanted to share my memories of his life. I was thinking about art-directorship , the mood of what I wanted to say: pensive, sad, respectful. I wanted to create a digital memorial.

I had a system on my site — hard stencils that did not give much flexibility, so I worked within these limits. Instead of creating large tabloid-like headings, as I usually do, I carried out the title with restraint in small capitals and increased the amount of space around the font. I did not need to do something radical with colors, placement and images. I just subtly modified my design to accommodate the change in the art direction of this blog post.

I did not want to change the design for the design itself. I wanted my readers to understand how special my grandfather was to me. I wanted to convey my thoughts and feelings as much as possible and thereby at least slightly change their attitude to reality. I wanted them to empathize with me, that, reading my text, they were with me. Art directorship , and not just design, allowed to achieve this effect.

Translated by Aiken Studio specifically for dear Habrahabr readers.