The Complete Guide to Becoming An Art Director

Chapter 1: What Does a Art Director Actually Do?

Pull up a camera feed from any major ad campaign, any product launch, any magazine cover you've seen in the last five years, and somewhere just out of frame is a person who decided what it looks like. Not the photographer, not the graphic designer, not the client. The art director. But here's the thing you need to understand before you get too far into this book: that image of the art director as a tortured genius having a vision in a dark room is mostly Hollywood. The reality is a lot more about email, spreadsheets, and managing other people's anxieties. If you want the honest version of this job, read on. If you want the fantasy, there's a six-hour documentary about a famous designer that'll be prettier to watch.

So what does an art director actually do on a day-to-day basis? Let's start with a definition that isn't from a dictionary but from lived experience: an art director is the person responsible for the visual concept and execution of a creative project. That sounds broad because it is. Ask three different art directors what they "do," and you'll hear three different answers, but they'll all have the same underlying skeleton. You are the person who takes an abstract goal (sell more shoes, launch a new app, announce a merger) and figures out what it should look like to achieve that goal. Then, you are responsible for making sure it actually