Designing for Aesthetic in Video Games Art Direction

Part of video game art direction is clear communication. However overoptimizing for an immediate unambiguous reading of your message can make the aesthetic of your game suffer and reduce the playfulness of your visuals. Whenever I talk about art direction, I always emphasize three points. I focus on legibility, emotional resonance and visual interest. Legibility is about clear communication of the main message through your visuals. Emotional resonance is about building the right visual associations that evoke the appropriate emotions. And visual interest is about providing enough (low level or high level semantics) visual variety to keep your viewers engaged. This way of thinking about art direction is practical and systematic. The three pillars give you immediate actionable steps on how to improve the visuals of your game. Once you go through them, chances are very high that you will be happy with how your game looks. <a href="https://medium.com/@DarkCookiess/designing-for-aesthetic-in-video-games-art-direction-12577c09dae0">Learn More</a>