What is it for?


Well, many choices will impact your product. Readability, color, fonts, shapes and style. These are just a few of many that will define your product and tailor to a specific audience, genre and platform. Is it midcore, hardcore, multiplayer, casual, story driven, mobile or PC?

What is the size of your team? How much time do you have for development? Who are the main competitors in that market?


I can help you put together an art direction that defines artistic goals, guidelines and workflows,

in order to achieve a consistent and realistic goal for your project.

This is not just for the team, but also in order to get management onboard and behind the vision of the project.


As Art Director, I will make sure your artists align with the established art direction.

However, artists can't be expected to constantly look at an art direction document to guide them through their daily work.

I support the artists through giving feedback and help encourage and inspire the team.

But, it is also important for the artists to learn how to assess their own work, and support their colleagues.

Art Direction document


In the art direction you should find guidelines and plenty of reference, but also common mistakes that you want to avoid.

I can help you and your team to create this this document for your specific needs.

It can end up with just one page, or a hundred pages, it all depends on the project.

Here are some extracts from art directions that I have worked on in the past:

Accent 

Vegitation

Buildings (city)

  • Avoid Blacks
  • Primary colors are pastels
  • Primary colors progress from warm to cold

Buildings

Covers (cars)

Bank

Balance textures in neutral lighting before tweaking the lighting

While conducting readability tests, try desaturating the frame in order to quickly identify issues. In this example we can see that the fountain disappears a bit, and needs some adjustment, either through updating overall lighting or the texture.

Black outline

Ambient occlusion

Almost no specular

DOF

Communication is very important, and clearly showing your intent and reasoning is vital for early feedback and direction. Is the product owner on board? Has the Technical Art Director given the thumbs up? Have the resources been cleared? Can we get there? 

Split complementary

Metal

Primary

Lights

Mood boards.


To distill the guidelines for a small group within a project, big or small, mood boards are really effective.

A mood board to inspire the entire team, or inspire the creation of any individual asset.

I would recommend mood boards to be set up for different disciplines or pods within the team,

in addition to a more general mood board for the whole team. 

I use reference images and concept art to communicate our vision.

Jonas Levin, Art Director


With 20+ years of experience in the game industry, I would be happy to help and support your team.


I have been part of production for 20+ projects, everything from small indie games to AAA titles like Battlefield.

I have worked within multiple disciplines like 3D art, environment art, character art, level design, animation and art direction.

The last project I worked on was a brand, including NFT creation, Web comics, Web3 games, cinematics and more.


I am passionate about realizing a concept, giving constructive feedback and help artists grow.


Feel free to reach out to me through email or Linkedin