Art Direction for games

After looking at the links to what it takes to be an art director and the writings of some art directors. I especially liked the web page from gameasutra showing “the day in the life of an art director” which gives me a great in site into what is involved once you become an art director. I view the role of a director as some one who has complete control over the way a game should look and feel. The director will have overall say on what the design of the characters, buildings etc in a game should look like and what effect they should have on the game play. He will then leave it up to his team to come up with designs and provide feedback until the result is perfect. I think to become an art director in the computer games industry you need good leadership skills in conjunction with excellent technical skills, imagination and ability. Also I think experience and passion for computer games is key. An art director in the computer games industry is not dissimilar to that in film or music as it is the director’s job to know what will sell and how to produce and encourage his team to produce an effective piece of media. I am defiantly aspiring to become a art director in a games company and even though from reading the challenging application forms online I think, from seeing what current directors feel about their job it can be very rewarding, and highly paid ha-ha.