How to Impress an Art Director ft.

Special Guest Lauren Brown sits down with us to talk about her experience as a professional artist and art director currently working at Wizards of the Coast,
Lauren is not a spokesperson for Wizards and is speaking only from her own personal experiences as an art director for the last 5 years across 4 separate companies (this is part 1, part 2 coming soon)
Find Lauren here
Instagram labillustration...
Twitter x.com/Labillustration?s=20
KZbin @PaintedInColor
00:00 Intro
00:42 What is the role of an Art Director
06:28 Can you be an Art Director if you are not an artist
12:34 On-the-job training Art test
27:08 Generalize or Specialize
29:01 How AI is affecting the hiring Process
37:01 Fired?
41:52 Final thoughts
43:56 Lightbox info
45:50 Pokemon outro
Music by Streambeats
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[@THEPOWEROFLIFE2011]

Always love and appreciate inkwell for bringing in art conversations from working professionals. I feel similar to how art youtube felt for me back in 2013-2014, but more informative

[@Inkwell]

Thanks for watching!

[@MiaAraujo]

Lauren is such a powerhouse, and an amazing human being to boot! Thank you for having one of my fav people ever on your show, Dustin!!

[@drawrobot]

Good talk.The good news with AI is I saw a recent article in Hollywood Reporter that a judge ruled that an ai generated image can not be copyrighted.

[@sarah345]

As a manager at an art business, I have had that problem of people just not wanting to do their job. I think maybe it’s because I’m at a smaller company, but we’ve had a couple employees now that felt like tidying up or doing simple projects was beneath them, even though it was outright what they were hired to do. The company I work for does not have the budget to have people come clean our studio, and it’s like she said, we all end up having to wear different hats in a small business. So I wear a few hats as like a manger and a person who corresponds with customers and sets up work and also completes more complex projects that other people don’t have the skill set for, but also spends a lot of time doing paperwork I’d really rather not do, except that it’s part of my job. Plus I and the other managers will also do the tidying and the simple jobs when the place is slow, or if that’s all the work we have at the moment. So at some point we realized we needed someone to help us keep the space tidy but also complete the simple repetitive projects we get all the time, so we hired for that position, but one person would get really resentful of management for not “pulling their weight” in terms of clean up. This sometimes happened because we had responsibilities that went beyond just coming in and completing assignments, but they didn’t see a lot of that work. And the other just acted like it was beneath them and wouldn’t do it which only added to their coworkers resentment. Anyway it was really frustrating and ended badly in both cases. Managing people is hard, be really really careful who you hire.

[@caringfamily8132]

Dustin, fantastic interview. You and Lauren have strong, natural chemistry. Hey, consider doing a regular interview/video, perhaps once per month or something, where important art topics are discussed; heck, even doing art critiques, for that matter. Anyway, Lauren has excellent communication skills, as do you, so conversation flows so smoothly. Cheers!

[@Inkwell]

Thanks so much! Once I get more set upI I would love to do a more regular video schedule! Hopefully an push toward that next year!

[@magdalenabolesta9343]

It's really good to hear that Art Directors are humans :D I am young, small town artist and I do not have that chance to work in art studio so a lot of what Lauren said help me understand some things.

[@Joroumii]

Jocelyn here, not sure if you remember me, but I was in the art show at Dragoncon this year and it was so lovely to meet you both! Definitely appreciate you all chatting about this; this is such a useful and informative talk and I definitely got a lot of insight. Job well done to you both!

[@Inkwell]

Hi Jocelyn, I remember, you have beautiful work!

[@anothermoon8894]

*insert Mean Girls meme here* When Companys don't wanna reveal that they use AI: So you agree? That AI "art" is exploiting and stealing from human artists and it's absolutely wrong to use it commercially and morally 😀 (This is not a diss on Lauren, she's amazing but she needs to protect herself because companies don't want people to know that they use AI and that's because THEY KNOW. OH THEY KNOOOOOOW it's hella wrong)

[@3danmensional0000]

damn man, I really appreciate you bringing these guests in to talk. It's so nice to have these people in the industry talk about tips on getting recognized for your art. It also makes it less stressful knowing that they know it's a stressful time right now for artists.

[@ambi8822]

The way Lauren put her opinion on AI art into words with such clarity really shows how much thought she's given the topic. I've always struggled in discussion to express what she did here for why I dislike seeing it and how it's used, so hearing the way she expressed it here really resonated with me.

[@jessicaparkerillustration]

Thank you for this video! I'll confess that I am very intimidated by art directors, so it was so encouraging to have this video to listen to, and to hear from such a kind and talented art director! 😊 Your discussions were fascinating and helpful, and this channel is quickly becoming one of my favorites :)

[@labillustration]

Thank you for watching the interview! I had a similar feeling when I was starting out in my career. Having real, human conversations with the people who I looked up to helped me to be less intimidated and more open to asking them questions. I hope this talk helped dispel some of the fear! 😄

[@jessicaparkerillustration]

@@labillustration yes, it definitely helped! :) Thank you!!

[@lollypuddn]

This is such an important and amazing video to make at this time~

[@Inkwell]

Hope it helps!

[@stefaniedc1128]

I've been an art director for the past 7 years (for multiple design agencies, and in-house teams), and Lauren is absolutely right about often times running into artists that will be given a brief and instead of following the brief, they will create art for their own ego. Please don't do this. There is a client waiting for the piece that you're working on -- that client has extremely specific needs, and applications. That brief has been worked on and narrowed down by SO many people before getting to you. Please, please, with respect -- read the fucking brief. Stick to the brief. We can talk about getting creative on a different project, if you can show me that you can follow direction when asked to.

[@1000yaos]

Hey there! I was fortunate to get some of your illustrations at DragonCon! I was wondering if you were going to be attending DesignerCon in Anaheim in December? If so I'll be sure to swing by as I'd like to get some of your other prints based on the Ghibli works - they're so pretty!

[@Inkwell]

Sadly, I won't be at Designercon this year, I'm taking a few months off from cons to focus on KZbin.

[@YigitCakar]

This was an excellent interview, thanks a lot for the insights! Lauren has such an energy that even watching her here makes one want to go work for her and do the best work one can.

[@livixsart]

Super helpful video, thanks so much for posting! Seeing you talk to an actual Art Director and getting to hear about your and Lauren's experiences really helps bring them down from the pedestal of the Big Scary AD and helps put into perspective that they're just another person trying to make a project as good as it can be. I really appreciate hearing both of your perspectives on art tests and AI as well. This has certainly made communicating with ADs a lot less intimidating. Great video!

[@qualifiedcornstarch6859]

Awesome interview!! I loved how well Lauren expressed the problems with AI, it made me feel so seen. And it was a great tip about art tests and flexing within the parameters.

[@barabara1051]

This chat was so inspiring! Thank you!

[@BicDouble]

Thank you for this interview! I would love to work for WoTC one day and it’s awesome to listen to an interview with an AD for them. I loved her stance on AI art and wholly agree with her sentiment

[@VisMed_artist]

I cant get an entry level position to save my life. If people dont get the entry level positions they wont be able to stick around when all the pro old artists in the high positions die off... Its killing me... I cant get jobs or even get a look in... I feel like I am good enough for at least something entry level man... I gotta be surely..

[@VisuallyMediocre]

​@MrRainbow228it's honestly keeping me up at night... If I had started trying sooner instead of getting a job and a house would I be working as an artist now? It's actually heart breaking

[@Thatmainchick]

I loved this interview

[@ArtbyJoeZ]

Great interview! Great people! Thank you!

[@the.uglyface808]

I love this channel. Dustin your content for artists is so awesome, thank you. And Lauren is amazing! Omg what a beautiful exchange of personality and concepts between you both.

[@ChantelleArts]

amazing video, such big and important points raised ❤❤

[@carolanebruneau]

Very good video. Thanks for sharing all this knowledge with us :)

[@derekmoore1387]

The insight and advice about art tests are valuable.

[@axbraun_art]

Such good info, around 25:00 is a good moment of "master the rules before you break them". Having some art directing experience now, this is something a lot of artists miss. Many young art folk come in and want to be the spotlight

[@Tezemya]

I love these interviews, you´re a great host

[@LewisCoxIII]

Oh you're here in Atlanta! :D

[@o_lilium4829]

amazing interview! loved to hear her perspective on AI especially.

[@BethanValerious]

This interview is so good 😊❤ thank you both!

[@Inkwell]

Thanks for watching!

[@labillustration]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for watching it!

[@ZedAmadeus]

got recommended this out of the blue, was super interesting :D

[@Inkwell]

Thanks for watching

[@HelpTheLegend]

Excellent video super informative , one of your most helpful interviews 🙇🏾‍♀️ keep up the good work👏🏾👏🏾🏆

[@Inkwell]

Thanks so much!

[@NotTheRealAutomator]

Thank you for the fantastic insight!

[@MochachiiinoWorks]

i let the algorithim take me here, what a lovely podcast!

[@Inkwell]

Thanks for watching!

[@DevinElleKurtzArt]

whooo lauren

[@Inkwell]

🦑🦑🦑

[@user-fy3nf3lg2j]

dream job man and she would be raking it in for her salary.

[@Mieklet]

omg missing the brief 15:27.... the worst LOL

[@Inkwell]

the biggest oopsie 🤧

[@labillustration]

THE WORST! But we all live and grow from it 🥰

[@oatniq]

inpress

[@Manoj_Kumar-26]

how to inpress?

[@user-fy3nf3lg2j]

actually so confused.

[@Gacktmoreaux]

bad timing

[@TheJakealope]

There are some interesting ideas here, thanks for sharing. I do feel that your perspective on AI may be naturally biased due to your reliance on making art for your living. To me, AI art democratizes the creative process. I don’t believe that only trained artists should have access to image generation abilities. I’ve known many wonderfully inventive people who were afraid to learn traditional art skills, and so their vision will be lost. But if the tools of production are made accessible, then they too can join the conversation, adding complexity to our lives. The main misconception I’m seeing here is that people think AI art can’t generate anything new, that it’s strictly derivative. This isn’t true. With proper vision and iteration new images appear all the time. I reverse image search what I generate and can never find anything even close, because I combine ideas from many disparate schools of thought. You may have seen specific examples of people using an artist’s name to create work very similar to theirs. But that’s obviously of no value and easily brushed aside by those in the know. To stigmatize AI because of bad actors is like stigmatizing photography because it can be used to document the work of other people. Used correctly, both tools can yield truly novel results. And as the tech affords evermore control over the finished product, it will be that much more potent as an art tool. It’s not about what it’s trained on, it’s about what someone chooses to make with it.

[@agathalynx]

Such a lazy and immature mindset. Making art is the same skill as any other. If you want to write great stories, you gotta LEARN. If you want to make good music, you gotta LEARN. Jeez, when you are a child you have to LEARN how to walk/talk/eat etc. If you are afraid to learn art to express your ideas, it’s the problem within YOUR mindset, and not within greedy artists who don’t want to share their pictures to feed AI. You are taking an ability to make pictures as some kind of “privilege” artists have when we spend years to reach a decent level of skills. We weren’t born art geniuses. We didn’t ask for these ML shit machines to make our job for us. And we don’t like when years of our hard work are simplified to the “talent”.

[@TheJakealope]

@@agathalynx I doubt anyone has accused you of being a genius, don’t worry about it.

[@TheJakealope]

@@agathalynx you’re so desperate for what you do to matter. You’ve obviously got a lot invested and so feel inherently threatened. Well, if you don’t think you can compete with AI, even with all your skill and effort, then what good was all that practice? At the end of the day, the complexity of individual imagination will trump the niche skill sets of a handful of capitalist illustrators. Why would clients be interested in artists limited to a single aesthetic, their own? Adapt or die.

[@Thesamurai1999]

I guess I’m negative towards the AI community because of how people use AI to scam and trick others. Selling “water color” paintings or posting it in actual water color subreddits when in reality it’s AI generated. On top of all this, anyone who studies other artist pretty much always does it in respect, whereas the AI community does it for the sake of mocking them; to mimic other artist by training the AI on their work only to use it in a demeaning way. Saying things like “haha, your art is now worthless!” I saw a few of those during the SamdoesArt controversy or when someone trained an AI on Kim Jung Gi’s work after his death. Instead of showing any form of respect, they use it to mock them. Now this did exist before AI, an artist could still mock and harass another artist but it was always shunned upon by everyone else. Whereas in the AI communities I often see it encouraged, a group of people targeting a single artist not because they’re in awe of their work or inspired by their work but for the sole purpose of messing with them. I’ve never seen that behavior being encouraged by a large community before. I don’t have anything against someone who use AI in a regular moral way to create their world though. I do disagree with you on a few points. 1) AI can create something new. 2) the “democratization of art” 1) I agree AI can create a new image, a new scene, but it struggles making a new distinct style, all the styles I’ve seen are based upon other artist. A human is capable of creating a completely new style, even if the human has only trained on real life references. An AI only trained on real photographs can only create photographic images. An artist who understands the fundamentals are capable of exaggerating a real life reference and morph it into a completely unique style. That’s how all these styles came to be in the first place. If an artist and an AI were to study a tree. Both are given 3 hours. The artist will always end up with an accurate but stylized result of that tree (they don’t have time to do a realistic copy), the AI however will end up with a photographic result with minor (if any) mistakes unless you tell the AI to paint the tree in the style of X person. 2) The creative process has always been democratized. It has been more democratized than playing video games or watching movies or whatnot, it’s cheap to get paper and pencils and even without that, you could use sticks and draw in sand. By saying that, you imply it never was, and it would be the equivalent of saying math, physics, skateboarding, surfing, mountain climbing and all other sort of skills are not democratized. They all are, all you gotta do is start learning. The only time something is not democratized is when you’re not allowed to learn something. But knowing how to draw or perform any of those other forms of skill has never been banned, and thus has always been democratized. My biggest fair with AI is how it’ll end up doing everything for us. I see that as a bad thing, maybe you don’t.

[@TheJakealope]

@@Thesamurai1999 Well those bad actors are definitely not doing AI any favors for public perception. It sucks people are abusing it but hopefully that isn’t enough to dissuade people on its own. Trolls fade into obscurity. AI may not enable originality just yet, but as control increases, so too will the voice of the artist. With each upgrade and step forward, AI becomes more and more aware of what it’s doing. When I first started messing with it I could barely render anything like what I was imagining. But now with DALLE 3 I have control over composition, textures, aesthetics, and most important, ideas. With more competent text rendering abilities, we can begin to see the real creative potential of the medium. Individual taste and voice will become more important as we are able to say more. Not all creativity is equal, and the true visionaries will reveal themselves in what they choose to explore and how they go about it. AI is still somewhat derivative, because of what it’s been trained on. I could easily say the same of most human artists. Exposure to more novel ideas, and a deeper understanding of the details that comprise an image, AI will probably surpass us. But I also think it will dramatically enable us to imagine things humanity never could have touched beforehand. I’m not worried about being replaced, mostly I’m worried about drowning in a sea of sub-par crap. AI can help us step up and push the envelope.

[@user-fy3nf3lg2j]

I don't wanna be rude but her art is beyond average wtf how did she land a role as an artist.