Concept Art and the favorite sandwich.. advice for beginners.

This is best read and intended for folks who are thinking about getting into design.

.. So you got something to design?  Ohh, something that's 'cool' 'neat' 'never been seen before!'.. Arrr, if that is direction you got, I am not envious at all.  Just imagine all the directors you will come across, and how each would perceive what 'cool' means..  Cool, is shorthand for 'make something I will like'.  Bless you if you can do that every single time without more feedback, haha.   When you go into a design, you need to watch for shorthand terms that are common pitfalls that will cause revision, lost time, and worst out of all of those, the dreaded favorite sandwich.

Rather than settle for 'Cool, neat, awesome, better, more better', as feedback, be specific in asking for feedback that will help you the most when shooting for the hero design.  I commonly ask about texture, lighting, mood, scale, palette.. most of all, what caused the director to be inspired for the design.  Understanding these few criteria will help to rule out a lot of miss-communication and a lot of revisions.

Do this, and hopefully you will never have a favorite sandwich....

Whats a Favorite sandwich?  I like to think of the design team as sometimes trying to make the perfect sandwich.  With the right combination of ingredients, you can have the most amazing sandwich!.. with the wrong ones..  Well, this is the moment when you have more than one vision.  .. and in very bad cases, several visions.  Picture this, the design you are trying to achieve is a sandwich.  The director started, and he said, I like Swiss cheese and bread.  You came along, and think that salami might go well, so you add salami..  Well, a few days later, the lead designer comes along and he really needs anchovies...  They are not everyone's favorite, but they have to go in.  Then after that, the Art Director came back from a meeting and said, he likes mustard, but marketing says peanut butter sells 2 to 1 over mustard..  Your doomed, the next thing you know, nobody very much likes the taste of your sandwich...  Even though everyone gave you great feedback..   The point is, you need to be armed with your design criteria, so you can always be aware if an item fits in your sandwich..  Had your design goal been, make the best, 'Bronx themed sandwich', you would have been much better off than trying to design 'the best sandwich ever'.  .. and the problem is, that it really is your fault if you get stuck in favorite sandwich mode.  The concept guy needs to be able to qualify the design criteria and also be armed with the ability to kick it back for feedback if needed before it heads into design production.

All that said, it is easy to say, yet hard to practice..  When you are starting, you often don't have the foresight to head off peanut butter on your salami sandwich.  Even still I come across forehead slapping moments, when a director says 'I just don't like the color orange'..

-R