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The difference between Art Direction & Graphic Design

August 13th, 2010

Many students (where I still study) do not know the difference between Graphic Design and Art Direction, they have question marks flowing around their heads whenever I’m asked about my job title and I say “I’m an Art Director“. Therefore, I thought I’d write/collect this info in a nice way to give a full-image:

A Graphic designer should be a person with design skills, as in computer software knowledge and color harmony + some font/typography skills, While Art Directors are more focused into photography, theme/styles, guidelines and layouts, also… they don’t have to have a design background.

One more responsibility that often separates the Art Director from the Graphic Designer is photography/photo shoots. Art Directors often develop concepts that require specific photos to be taken, so they need to select photographer (unless they are strong photographers themselves), they often select props and locations for the photoshoot as well as attend the photoshoot to provide additional direction and feedback to the photographer in real-time (Of course real money is involved and time becomes a major deciding factor as to whether or not the Art Director is needed at the photoshoot.)

Graphic Designers often have images dictated to them through the Art Director or Marketing team, or select imagery from stockhouses. If you are lucky, you may find a Graphic Design position where you are given the option to create your own images and can be involved in the photoshoot in the same capacity as the Art Director.

In my work experience as a Senior Graphic Designer, I rarely had opportunity to create images that required a photoshoot, and due to the layers within the creative department, when the opportunity came up, the Creative Director or Art Director would attend and manage the photoshoots. But when I was promoted to an Art Director, things pretty much changed! Some people are more cerebral, others are natural wellsprings of unbridled creativity bristling at the seams.

The point is, each of us has our own talents, and being able to recognize talent in others and being able to organize them together is in itself a talent. Art Direction would be geared towards advertising, marketing and sales promotion. Culturally and conceptually there is a big difference between these activities and the rest of Graphic Design.

As an Art Director, I can tell you that my job is more concept-oriented than that of a designer. As pointed out above, the same core competencies are needed for both jobs. Do you enjoy more developing concepts and picking the right elements (fonts, illustrations, photography) and the people to pull them off, or doing the hands-on design work yourself? It’s not that designers never come up with concepts or Art Directors never do design, but it comes down to how much time you invest in those two areas. Once you’ve been an Art Director for 3-5 years, you should be able to come up with headlines and copy points (not necessarily finished copy) and a Copywriter should be able to come up with visuals (though not necessarily be able to art direct a photo shoot). If that is something you want to do, go the Art Director route. But really, school only begins your education – you’ll be learning for the rest of your life.

The problem with designers is that too many designers are dependent on other people (some with very little experience) to provide them with copy. Copy can make or break a concept. To be able to skillfully craft a simple headline or a good tagline is essential to the design process, and not an innate ability of everyone claiming to be designers. Also, it will make you all the more appealing to your prospective client/employer.

Every Graphic/Online/Media designer nowadays calls himself an Art Director (or worse Information Architect). Even the Wikipedia does it in a little confusing manner. Find out what is the difference between a graphic designer and an art director and what it takes to become one.

Despite the title, an Advertising Art Director isn’t necessarily the head of an art department… If you do not “direct” at least a team, may it be of internal co-workers or external partners in a project, then you are probably not an art director. You might be a very good graphic designer, photographer, art-buyer, copy-texter, image retoucher, layouter, producer, but not an Art Director. Art directors are team players with a good knowledge of the above capabilities. He must understand them, he has not to excel in them, but know how to use them accordingly. If he is not the best photographer for the job, he has to know who is and this not only by capabilities, but also according to the budget.

In smaller firms, most of the time the budgets are tight and therefore the graphic designer takes also the pictures and writes the headlines, looks over the production, printing … While this can result in very good quality for small projects, it also has on big pitfall. The outcome is limited to the capabilities and style of one person.

The Art director on the other hand, has to have the big picture in his head, know where the whole production is heading to. Setting the style and tone for the project and is not limited to only his capabilities. It takes a copywriter and art director/graphic designer, working together, to create an effective ad, direct mail piece, brochure, or webpage.

My advice? Make up your mind too early and decide upon what you want to be!

An Art Director is someone who works in an advertising agency or comes out of an agency background. He or she specializes in creating ads or commercials, though a good art director can do just about anything including collateral and because they come from an advertising agency background, an art director comes to your project with a good marketing background and an interest in selling. The Art Director develops the concept of the ad, along with the copywriter, then commissions any necessary photography or illustration. He or she also selects the type style and supervises production.

A Graphic Designer is the perfect choice for corporate identity work, including logo development, signage, brochures, and package design. Again, good graphic designers can do it all, though advertising may not be their strong suit. Graphic designers are terrific at making things look beautiful. If you need a flyer or a killer brochure, I’d give a designer a call. Because most graphic designers don’t come out of an advertising agency background, some aren’t as tuned in to marketing as they might be. Initially, you want them to be more interested in understanding the target audience than in worrying about what paper stock works best.