A long great article that I ever read!

Now I'm doing assignment for my portfolio website subject. Joanne wrote 3 things that I need to do to show her development of my ideas which are: Art direction, design treatment, and level design. I was wondering what definition of art direction is that actually Joanne already told me last week, but because of my laziness, I was not write down what she told me.
So just now I search about art direction and found an article in a website "for people who make website".

It's such a great article! about how we should do and develop our ideas, and well-develop concept will better than just a concept.

Here a part that I like most.
"Suppose a toothpaste company asks you to come up with a site that will be aimed at all age groups. Someone purely concerned with design might create a proposal which uses very nice type, blue as a background color because it’s “fresh,” and some stock photos of generic mouth and teeth or laughing model families. They’ll spend time tinkering with lines and shadows, wondering if they’ll use a two-column or three-column layout. They might even have a tube of toothpaste being squeezed on to the screen and use the straight line of squeezed toothpaste as a navigation bar. It might look nice, but that’ll be the end of it.

An art director would perhaps come up with a concept which communicates the importance of the smile. What does a smile communicate? Power? Confidence? Happiness? Amusement? All of the above? The art director might choose to delve into the smile as a symbol of healthy teeth and gums. She might even choose to categorize types of smiles and relate these to types of toothpaste, exaggerating the images used to portray the toothpaste types:

• Cool Minty Fresh: the smile of a climber on Mount Everest.
• Extra Sensitive: the smile of Dr. Phil.
• Extra Strength: the smile of Dracula.

Smiles of “power people” paired with success stories. Smiles of comedians — laughter is the best medicine. The smile as an international language of friendship. Why not develop our own “smilies” or emoticons? You get the idea. Don’t “just” design. It’s often just plain boring when compared to a well-developed concept"

Credit:

Article: Art Direction and the Web by Stephen Hay

Website: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/artdirweb

thankfully I read this article. Hopefully I can do and develop my idea. Wish me luck!