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Game art design is one of the key components of any game that aims to be engaging, immersive and great-looking. You have to make sure your game looks unique and fresh, attracts audience’s attention in a saturated game market and also accompanies the game overall.
Video game art design is practically responsible for ensuring your game will be seen as truly special and outstanding. Let’s discuss it in detail, see what principles of video game art design can be learned to create a better game in the end and also take a look at how game art outsourcing companies can help you with it effectively.
To put it simply, game art design is the process of turning technical aspects of a game into something visually pleasing.
The easiest example you can think of is a Mario-like platformer. One box will jump onto another. This way, an obstacle will be overcome. Another box will be an enemy – you will have to avoid it. A different box is a reward – you must take it to win.
Game visual design quite literally brings imagination, art and creativity into this technical description of a platformer: boxes become characters, enemies become recognizable and formidable, rewards become readable and attract your attention. Artistic vision starts to be seen, things become recognizable and start to get their very own identity.
Speaking of identity, video game art design tends to define it to make a game truly different from others. It manages to blend the distinct look of the game with its crucial gameplay aspects.
For instance, a game may be inspired by 1930s cartoons, but it will still have elements of games from the 80s, 90s and 00s, which will be beautifully and tastefully incorporated into the chosen game visual design style. When you manage successfully to have them both, you can be sure your game art design is on point.
This can be achieved by artists working with a wide scope of principles that lead to a particularly outstanding video game art design. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Here are some of the principles that lead to a great, remarkable game art design that will resonate with your players and won’t be forgotten fairly easily.
When things can be recognized from afar, it’s a great sign that your video game art design is going in the right direction. When a player interacts with your game, it’s important they can identify things easily and react to them fairly quickly. Keeping things coherent is very important in games that require a quick reaction, be it a fighting, fast-paced online shooter or a MOBA with a great amount of things happening on screen.
If you’re making a particularly distinct game and aim to impress and even surprise your potential audience, it may be a good idea to come up with the style that not only accompanies well your game’s mechanics, story and overall direction, but also the style that feels fresh, unique and exciting. This will attract the audience, make them talk about it and benefit your project altogether.
Tasteful details add depth, which, in turn, add the immersion, which is incredibly valuable if you’re crafting a unique experience. A lot of players tend to care about things that feel like a labour of love, and a little hat with the flower on your character’s head or a scar from the battle that is never shown but mentioned by a character will impress players, to the extent that they even can make fan art, which of course will feature these subtle little details. However, don’t overdo it – overstuffing can lead to opposite results.
Visual clues’ hierarchy allows you to point out the most important things. Colors, tones, contrasts allow artists to achieve this. A yellow paint shows us the right way naturally, glimmering chests indicate that something can be found inside, environmental objects you can interact with tend to be much more visible than the ones you can’t. Not only does it look better, it also helps players, navigates them and allows them to be fully immersed.
Video game art design outsourcing can be a strategic choice for developers looking to optimize time and resources while keeping a high-quality production standard. It allows you to focus on other important aspects of your game’s design and still get amazing results.
Here are some of the benefits of outsourcing game art different developers may gain from collaboration with an outsourcing studio:
RocketBrush Studio has been working since 2016, creating works and providing services, including 2D and 3D art outsourcing of video game art design, for leading gaming industry names, such as Supercell, Paradox Interactive, Uken Games, Romero Games, Applovin and so on. Here are our testimonials you can read.
We produced game art design works of various styles and genres: cute and cozy mobile games, fantasy card games, pixelated indie roguelites, post-apocalyptic zombie survival games and many others. Take a look at our scope in our portfolio.
Our workflow has been tested and proven to be working correctly, providing final results in different projects that suit the industry standards and satisfy our clients. We provide a dedicated project manager that keeps you in the loop on all the changes in the work pipeline. We also participate in regular meetings and internal reviews for feedback and discussion, ensuring the high quality of all work.
Originality isn’t just about wild visuals, it’s also about cohesion. Games that stand out on the saturated market usually match their art style with the gameplay, worldbuilding and emotional tone.
Ideally, it should be done from the very start. Art direction impacts everything from level design to UI to player experience.
Keep it functional. Trying to do too much too soon is a big one — overcomplicating visual styles without a clear purpose. Others include poor readability during gameplay, inconsistent visual cues, or neglecting how art affects user navigation and emotional pacing.
By using hierarchy and intention. The most successful titles guide the player's focus using contrast, motion, and color, while leaving background elements more subdued. Immersive detail works best when it enhances narrative or gameplay, not when it distracts from it.
Great game art design may lead to being easily noticed by potential customers and also establish a game’s look that will be cherished and remembered. That’s why it’s so important: it can lead to positively unpredictable results and years of admiration by your loyal fans who love the way your game looked.
Now you know what game art design is and what aspects of it are noteworthy. You also know that when things get particularly complex during the game development process, you can rely on a game art outsourcing studio. Contact us at hello@rocketbrush.com and let's see how we can glow up your project together!
We wish you the best of luck with establishing your own game art design that players will fall in love with!
