Hello people of the Internet! I originally created
this blog as a part of an ongoing project for my English 214 class, which had
us blog about our possibly majors or things we might be interested in doing
sometime in the future. The semester is just about over (need to survive final
exams), and this is my last post for this blog. The main topic of the blog was
(of course) video games, and in each post, I’ve talked about certain key
qualities within games that have sparked my interest over the years to one day
pursue something I’m so passionate about and wish to learn. However, I’m at a
complete loss of what to write next for this final post….or maybe….there might
be something to talk about after all…. (Just so you guys know I’m free styling
with this post)
Not too long ago, I’ve made the decision of possibly
majoring in graphic design at SF State University, and next year I’ll be taking
some pre-requisite course in order to qualify for the major. Now I didn’t have
a lot of knowledge about what a graphic designer did exactly, but every time
I’ve mentioned to someone that I want to work somewhere in the video game
industry, they would always say that I should try graphic design. I wasn’t
necessarily clueless of the job occupation of a graphic designer, and
understood that their “aim is to create something that is
pleasing to the eye, and gets the attention of the viewer.”
However, I was unsure of what a graphic designer did
when it came to the video game industry. Was it the same concept or was there a
difference?
When it comes to the video game industry, graphic
designers are all about the “visual brand” of the product or company, and would
mainly focus most of their attention of the “logos, advertising campaigns, and other
things which require high visual impact and affect the branding of the product
or company.”
However, most of the stuff I’ve been talking about
in almost all of my posts, such as environment, character development and design,
dialogue, side-characters, etc., has been related to game designers, which mostly focus on “concept design, level
design, and characters to environments”, and are more involved in how the game
feels and looks while players play.
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| Courtesy of imgur (GoldenEye 007 N64 Levels) |
I don’t know if I want to become a graphic designer
or a game designer, but the point I’m trying to make is that there is one thing
that does contribute to the reason why I’m so passionate about video games: the
box-cover art on the game disc’s packaging.
It’s interesting that not many people give graphic
designer, artists, game developers and publishers a lot of credit for their
work on the cover art for the game, but then again, most people tend to only
purchase a game based on the scoring and reviews it received. Now, some people
may think that only artists contribute to the cover art because their entire
job is all about drawing or painting, but graphic designers also play a part as
well, and their entire job is all about making the image look appealing to
potential buyers, which that involves the color scheme, art design, and
placement.
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| Skyrim created by Bethesda; Mass Effect created by BioWare |
It’s important to make sure that the cover art does
a good job at advertising the contents of the game because it’s consistently competing
against a hundred different games on the shelves at GameStop. For me
personally, I tend to gravitate more to the game that’s able to pop out among
the rest and sticks out. If it’s able to show everything the game as to offer
in a colorful and creative way, then I take a risk and purchase the game without
researching ahead of time to see if the game is good or not. The first game
that ever took a risk at buying was Assassins
Creed because of how different it looked than all the games surrounding it,
and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
Again, I’m not sure if I want to become a graphic
designer or a game designer, but as long as I’m able to help create or
contribute to something that expresses my passion for something I love, then
there’s only one thing to say…
Keep
Calm and Design On!
