Book Review: The Art of Direction by Ron Ashtiani

The Art of Direction by Ron Ashtiani is a book for those who want to learn more about being an art director.

Ron Ashtiani has 24 years of experience in the entertainment industry. He started his career as an artist and animator and worked his way to become an art director in 2003. Then he became art director at Midway Games (UK) in 2007, founded visual design company Atomhawk in 2009, sold Atomhawk to Sumo Digital and joined the management team in 2017.

This is a book that's packed not only with practical know-how but also plenty of stories from Ashtiani's career of more than two decades.

In this book you'll learn about the role of an art director, responsibilities, leadership styles, project management, communication with artists and public (marketing), giving feedback and more. This book presents the overall big picture of art direction from conceptualisation to creation, publishing and putting the work out there.

On the artistic side, you'll learn to set an overall vision, choosing the style or stylisation of the project, know the differences between designing for print, games and video.

There are also profiles of several art directors on how they became art directors and the advice they have for aspiring art directors.

This is quite an insightful book for artists who are thinking of career movement and trying something new, taking on different responsibilities.

The Art of Direction by Ron Ashtiani is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | AU | JP | CN)

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