Art has always been an important method in conveying a thought or an idea but how has it managed to stay relevant in today’s expanding media. Within a modern society art has become a global necessity due to advertisements through to games, visual representation is a key element in conveying a message. An artists within modern society must produce more than just an aesthetically pleasing image, they must ‘design’ new ideas in an expanding culture.
Art has become a pillar in the entertainment industry, but how did it achieve this? Many say it was though the liberal use of concept artists. I am going to be researching into what it is concept artist do within the entertainment industry and how they have stayed relevant within a modern industry. I will also be looking into how artists became important in the entertainment industry and the beginning of concept artists. I will be using opinions from designers within the industry as well as my own opinions on concept art to support and guide my research. Through this dissertation I will be researching and analysing the structure of the design process used to create concept art and will show what I have learnt by applying it to my own work and document my progression. I believe this is the perfect opportunity to expand my skills and do something completely new.
I feel that simply saying the methods in creating concept art is too broad of a subject and so I will be narrowing my research and practitioners to the gaming industry, as this is the area my project will be based on. Some of the artists I will be looking at are Feng Zhu, Adam Adamowicz and Alan Lee. Most of the literature I will be using for research is from books I have collected over the years. A few are art books of my favourite games and films, the others are tutorial and guide books on digital art painting; and drawing basics relevant to both digital and traditional drawing.
A lot of my information will be gathered from tutorial videos online in which concept artists or designers explain how they tackle a design and the technical process. My main research source will be Feng Zhu as he has covered all areas of importance in the concept art industry and explains in detail the steps he takes in creating his artwork. He is also done podcast in which he explains in great detail the process he uses to create his designs, how to enter the concept art business and what to do once you have.
To support this dissertation I will be using my L6 project in which I am creating concept art for an indie game.
Through this dissertation I will be answering some of the following questions:
• What is concept Art?
• Who are the practitioners in the area?
• What mediums are used?
• What are some of the techniques?
• What does a concept artist need to know?
For my first section of my dissertation I will be covering what concept art is and a brief history of it. I will also be looking into concept arts importance in today’s industry. The first chapter will be heavily relied on extensive research through articles and books. For the second section I will be looking into what exactly a designer does in the industry and applying it to my own work. This section will heavily rely on primary research, such as interviews with artists and some secondary, such as books and video tutorials.
During my research I will be interviewing a few concept artist and asking them a few questions about the business and the steps and methods they use to create their artwork. The artists I will be talking to will range in style and technique in order to gain a broad spectrum of research.
The research I gained from interviewing the artists will help inform and expand on my theoretical knowledge. I will then begin explaining some of the mediums and techniques used to create the artwork. To show my progression with the research I will be putting each method to practice using my L6 project. I will evaluate each method and compare them to find what I believe is the most suitable method for me.
My final bit of research will be the steps taken to create concept art starting from the initial designs, to the final polished piece released to the public. I will be researching and comparing a few methods by my favourite practitioners in the area. I will evaluate each one and decide which one suits my style and method of creating and designing. I will then explore this method again through my project showing my progression towards my final piece.
Concept Art and its Origins
No one really knows when we began using visual communication to develop and design ideas or concepts, however evidence can be dated back to the Egyptian times in which hieroglyphs were used to convey building structures or agriculture. Of course this design and produce continued through many different cultures throughout the world.
So where did the term concept artist actually come from? Nobody knows but the earliest known record was during the 1930’s in which Disney used the term concept artist. The 1930’s is referred to as the ‘Golden Age of Disney’, during this time many of the most memorable Disney films such as Pinocchio, snow white and the seven dwarfs, fantasia, and many more where designed and released over the next ten years. Many different artists worked on these projects, however one artists is well known during that time, Gustaf Tenggren.
After the 1980’s there was a surge in popularity for video games and animated movies, and with the introduction of new the PlayStation the demand for games grew. Also during this time there was a rise in animated movies being released some that even to date hold up to the current generation of films; such as ‘My neighbour Totoro’, ‘Castle in the Sky’, ‘The Little Mermaid’ and many more. During this time there was a lot more demand for artists who could design and animate. This is what paved the way for the artist’s we have today, of course there have been many changes to the technical side but the objective is still the same.
During the early years of conceptual art everything was done using traditional medium’s, Disney was renowned for using the traditional animation also known as cel animation in which all frames were hand drawn. During this time there was no real distinguishing lines for artists in the industry, the term concept artist and animators were not truly separated. In this era artists were extremely important as can be seen when you look into how many worked on Snow White and the seven Dwarfs, the film was comprised of 32 animators, 102 assistants, 20 layout artists, 25 watercolour artists, 65 effects animators, and 158 paint artists. But with the introduction of computer animation in the 1990’s the need for artist decreased as there was no longer a need for traditional art during animation, and so artists were now only needed during the design phase.
During the 1930’s-1970’s it was not uncommon to have only one person working and designing on a film or game. However by the 1980’s it became more essential for a group of artists on a project. The group usually consisted of about three artists and an art director, for example during the creation of the little mermaid one artist was assigned a different character to design. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that concept artists were really noticed, due to the change from pong games (arcade games) to adventure games using 2D sprites. Some of the most famous games are Monkey Island, Donkey Kong, super Mario bros, and many more.
Another defining moment for concept art is the well-known franchise Star Wars (1977). This film trilogy spawned some of the most ground breaking concept art of the time. Its work is what set the standard for today’s art even now. The artwork that was produced for the star wars films went beyond simply designing an idea, it captured the essence of the film and the world being created. The two most known artist to work on the star wars films was Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston. Although their work is noticeably different in technique and style they both serve as the blueprints that make up what a concept artist must do in today’s industry.
Around this time many other films also began using artist more in the pre-production phase. Many classic films took advantage of this such as the alien trilogy, Jurassic park, and E.T. Although the art styles vary greatly for each film they all have one thing in common, and that is they all capture the atmosphere or essence of the story. If you compare the artwork from aliens to star wars there is a considerable difference. The star wars artists captured that sense of adventure and wonder by creating pieces that showed a sense of space and emphasised on vivid colours. In contrast the alien film artist captured a sense of horror by using dark claustrophobic scenes with morbid décor.
Moving forward to the 1990’s the term concept artist was still not defined in the gaming industry. Producer would just use whoever was able to draw the best to design different aspects of the game. Feng Zhu talks about what the industry was like when he first started in 1997 “ When I got that job I was actually the first person in terms of that studio with the official title of a concept artist. Prior to that concept art in video games was quite rare in terms of official job position. Most studios were just using whoever draws best to do that job”. During this time games were completely different to design as there was a handful of 3D games with most being a 2D platform meaning the output available was only low resolution images. This meant a lot of the detail designed simply would have been lost. Feng continued to talk about designing for a 2D game “… right this is 1997-1998 3D weren’t even around yet you had like tomb raider and a handful of games that were in 3D. Most game were still in 2d development cycle. So a lot of the art that was just done in terms of concept design which is like “eh you’re a designer do you sketch okay, do you draw pretty well? Okay design this thing” and a really a lot of game companies were just created that way.”
Due to the 2D platform concept art didn’t have to be as polished as it is today and they didn’t have the means to create it as well as Wacom’s weren’t even available yet. You would find if the designs that were created back then were available as they are today, they would be a much lower quality. Creating designs was an entirely different process, today to research all we need is the internet but during the 1990’s books and photograph references were collected and used. Most artists would rely on their imagination to design with the very little reference material available.
As technology advanced so did concept art, allowing the artists to create pieces faster and sometimes with a higher quality.
Concept art today
So how have the methods in creating concept design changed since the 1980’s? The short answer is the introduction of digital technology, but is it really just as simple as that. In the 1980’s sketchpads and tablets became a more commercialized product and conceptual designers in a variety of industries began using them. However the resources available to create digital art was limited and very costly, it wasn’t till a few years later in the 1990’s that digital platforms became more affordable. Through the introduction of tablets designing went from hours of hard labour for a few designs, to being able to produce a multitude of designs in a few hours.
In today’s industry it is essential for any aspiring artists/designer to be able to use a drawing tablet no matter what brand or how old it is, artist Warren Manser, says in an article he still uses an old Wacom Tablet “Less than a year ago, my old G5 was still my back up computer. I even have a really old Wacom tablet that I use in a pinch, once to a newbie’s amazement: “What kind of tablet is that dude? How old is that?” It has travelled across the country on location and is held together with one screw, but it still works.” It has become a common practice for every designer to use a Wacom as standard but is this is not all an artist needs to enter into the business.
No matter where you look you will always find hundreds artist able to create intricate designs that convey their character or scene but how do they get to this point. The answer is simple they just keep sketching designs down on whatever they can. After looking all multiple tutorials and interviews with concept artist each one says it is important to be able to sketch down whatever is in your head. Artist Manser says “Some people, including myself, actually sometimes draw with paper and pencil. Barbaric, I know, but a solid art foundation makes for original digital art that is not propped up by software alone.”
However some artists in the industry don’t use a digital format to create their work. For example artist Alan Lee is famous for working on the well-known Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) and The Hobbit films (2012-2015). Although he was mainly an illustration artist he designed much of the concept art for these two major film series and he worked solely in pencil or watercolour. After researching into concept art I have found a lot of artists will start their designs by simply sketching down in a sketch book, which they carry with them everywhere. So just as digital is a necessity in the industry so is the ability to sketch down whatever is in your head in any platform.
With the industry thriving in today’s society it’s easy to lose track of what artists stand out, unlike fine artists whose aim is to be noticed a concept artist simply just blends in with everyone. However it only takes one to look to notice artists with unique ideas and the ability to transfer them down. A few artists I have noticed while looking into concept art are; Feng Zhu, Adam Adamowicz, Claire Hummel, Dave Melvin, jae keum. Feng Zhu has worked on many big projects like Star Wars, Tron, and so many others. When looking at his work you can see he excels with any sort of mechanical design, especially vehicles. In stark contrast to his style is Adam Adamowicz, sadly he passed away last year but he was the leading artist in one of the biggest fantasy franchises in the gaming industry, The Elder Scrolls. His work still inspires many fantasy artists and games to this day. Unlike so many others in his department he worked a lot with traditional mediums which clearly conveyed into his digital as well.
Compared to the 1930’s it is a lot easier to access the behind the scenes designs and artwork that created the games or films. With art books being released after most major games or films, containing rough designs for characters and landscapes and then their final polished versions. Concept artist Feng Zhu said this about the industry; “To talk about the concept design industry because we have a lot of students who are new to this show, of course we have a lot of professional’s as well but I think we have a lot of students who are trying to make their way in to the concept design industry but yet at the same time this industry is quiet hidden. Now with the internet and Facebook and all these kinds of things and art sites and art books it is a little bit more exposed than before but at the same time that exposure sometimes is not entirely 100% either”. Even with the immense popularity of the entertainment industry especially that of games, the concept design industry is still a much hidden area with very few who know exactly what it means to be a concept artist.
With the rise of triple-A games like Skyrim, Call of Duty, being broadcast on TV it has become a trendier thing to play games. Previously you were called things like geek or nerd if you played games, but now it is seen as an almost normal thing. But this has been both a good and a bad thing for the industry. On a positive side it has brought a lot more popularity to games increasing sales and more people willing to join the industry not just in an art position. On a negative side many people will blindly pursue concept art thinking you simply draw pretty images and play games all day.
The role of an artist in the gaming industry
As a concept artist their job is to essentially create the ‘blueprints’, which is then used as a base for other departments within the company. For example a concept artist may create a ‘blueprint’ for a vehicle which then a 3D specialist will render a model to use within the game or film.
A concept artist essentially creates a piece from scratch, whether its creating characters, vehicles or landscapes; all if not most will collect a lot of references to inspire their design and try to capture the essence and mood for the game. A concept artist will create many art pieces until they reach a point that fulfils the client’s needs, after which the piece will be taken and used as a kind of “Blue Print” from which everything else is based off. A concept artist will design perhaps hundreds of unique “Blue prints”, this typically includes characters, costumes, environments, vehicles and props. Upon which other departments will “refer to whilst creating final in game or on screen components”.
These Blue prints are essential to other departments as it allows them to create 3d renderings of said piece, in which they will create a scene and fill it with props and other components designed from the concept artist. There are hundreds of different concept artists and each one has their own unique style and method to approach designing just as any illustrator does. Some artists take the modern route and use a digital format but in contrast some still prefer a traditional medium and work solely with pencil and pen. Throughout this chapter I am going to be looking to find if there is a base way for artists to approach designing for games/films. I will also be looking into some of the techniques used to create concept art, while comparing them to others.
So what is the role of an artist is the concept art industry? To help me answer this I reached out to a few artists that work in the gaming industry as conceptual artists. I decided to ask some quick questions that covered what I believe to be the major topics that are hard to find out about the business. I will also be asking some more personal questions that I would like to know about the industry. Some of the questions I will be asking are; how would you describe what your job is, do you think character design is essential in the video game industry, how do you approach designing a character or landscape, what skills are needed and how versatile do you need to be, and lastly how is your work critiqued.
Q.A. with Ross Dearsley
1. In short how would you describe what your job is?
A concept artist has to visually research, develop, design and sometimes stylize elements within a game or movie project which usually don’t already exist. This typically includes characters, costumes, environments, vehicles and props. Concept art is the ‘blueprint’ that other departments refer to whilst creating the final in-game or on-screen components.
We are also sometimes asked to visualise ‘key moments’ in order to capture an idea or get a feel for how the final project might look.
2. Do you think character design is important in the video game industry and why?
It is extremely important – the player effectively inhabits the main character of a game, and interacts with numerous others – so it’s essential that the designs are appealing in order for the player to be immersed in the virtual reality of the game world.
Ideally the characters will be visually distinctive and iconic in order to capture the players’ attention and imagination. Characters are often the primary visual design element used to sell a game.
3. How do you approach creating a character or design?
I usually start out with the aim to design a character that is visually intriguing or unique. I look at inspirational reference imagery and build up ‘mood boards’ that capture the visual essence of what I think might be interesting. This helps to refine the design direction, and at this visual development stage sometimes a completely new and more interesting visual direction is discovered.
It is a good general rule to reference imagery from outside of the project genre – e.g. if you’re designing a space soldier game character, it’s good to be aware of other similar game characters, but to create something original it is best to draw inspiration from elsewhere. A good example of this is the space suit designs from the original 1979 movie ALIEN – they have a very original and unusual look compared to previous movie space suit designs.
4. How often do you find your designs are critiqued?
When you’re working closely within a team, critiques can be a daily ongoing process which gradually helps refine the design direction. In general I would expect at least three major design reviews/critiques before approaching a final character design phase.
5. How versatile do you think an artist needs to be in the gaming industry?
Within the industry there are many specialist job roles, such as modelling, rigging, animation etc. and there are plenty of artists who only do that specific job. But with concept art you are usually working in a reasonably small department or on your own as a freelance artist, so in my experience it is beneficial to be as versatile as possible. I think a good concept artist should be confident designing characters, costumes, environments and vehicles, and ideally some ability in model-making and 3D software such as ZBrush is beneficial.
Q.A. with Vernon Lee
Conversation:
How would you describe what your job is? And depending on the art director as well it can be really obscure and then your kind of job is to visualize that idea as such.
How do you approach designing a design especially an obscure one? It depends were you are, like whether you’re in pre-production or production. Where is it you specialize in? Well funny story im currently still employed at a studio but im not working their anymore. It’s in Germany so im still in Germany, im currently on a paid leave because my contract is not being renewed. Bu before that I was working in prototyping. Do you know what that is? Not really. Ok, my prototyping is kind of like the really early stage. So like when they don’t know what kind of game their going to make then we do all the prototypes for the game. So then for instance they go we want this game maybe to do this or this, and then or job is to make a really quick mock up within maybe like a few weeks just to test it out to see if it actually works well. So with prototyping there is no art director because there is no need for it and then pre-production and production are very different as well so it really depends what stage you’re in with the game.
What are some tips you could give when designing a character or game? It’s difficult because it’s really situational in that sense. There’s not really any one bad thing just is it contusive to the design. So what purpose are you doing it for, if it’s good then its good. If the designs bad it doesn’t necessarily mean the character is bad.
How versatile do you think you need to be as an artist? This kind of depends on where you want to work games or films. Because with like a small studio you need to be able to do everything, but the problem with that is because you’re so spread out you might necessarily be really good at one thing. Were as if you work at a bigger studio then it’s the exact opposite, when you are working in a small team you need to be able to do everything because there’s not enough people to do everything but then in a bigger studio you have more people doing different things and specializing in different things. So really you just need to know where you want to be placed. And as for the traditional and digital mediums, I wouldn’t say traditional is a bad thing but honestly it really depends, because if you’re really fast in traditional then by all means go for it. But for the most part you will be facing more digital artist. Personally for me I find it a lot easier in digital, I don’t really do much line work I kind of just block everything in. And that is a lot easier in digital.
After talking to these two artists I felt that the general response was the same but just phrased differently. I found this rather interesting as both focused on different aspects in their jobs, Ross was mainly a character designer were as Vernon mainly focused on landscape and scene’s. Personally I want to become a character designer so I found talking to Ross very beneficial and got a very good sense of what a concept artist is. I also felt that Vernon believed most of what a concept artist does is very situational were as Ross gave very direct points based on what he does.
Practical side of designing
My next bit of research is into the practical side of creating digital paintings. Of course when you research concept art you will see amazing detailed paintings but the truth is these paintings are not concept art, these are produced later on after the original designs have already been approved. These works are used in the production phase to promote the game. In reality concept art looks a little like this:
This would then be neatened up to a more appealing design to present to the producers. With time artists become a lot more skilled at creating more detailed and polished designs faster, which makes them some of the top in the industry. However for a beginner it can be challenging just keeping up with their speed. So how do some of the pros in the industry suggest a beginner can become better? I started by looking for any books that could give tips, I found four that are extremely beneficial for a beginner. They are ‘beginner’s guide to digital painting in Photoshop’, ‘Drawing basics and video game art’, ‘Digital painting techniques’ and ‘Character design from the ground up’.
So from reading all these books what did I learn? Well they key points that were always repeated in each book are:
• Fundamentals of drawing
• Visual Reference
• Colour
• Lighting
• Perspective and composition
• Scale and Proportion
Like every form of art fundamentals are an extremely important thing to learn and with concept art they are ever more present due to the range of designs required. For example one day you may be working on a character in which anatomy will be most important, the next you could be working on a landscape in which perspective will be the most important aspect. This leads perfectly into the next subject Visual reference. This is because with the constant shift in subjects having a visual reference helps you to understand your subject in more depth such as its shape, how light affects it, proportion, etc. Using images helps you to easily implement it into your work with as little mistakes as possible. In ‘Digital painting; tricks and techniques’ (page.15) it talks about the importance of reference’s “…creating or sourcing photographic reference will be an important skill to hone. Taking inspiration from photographs is important but so is understanding how to apply that reference to your image.” Of course using an image is fine but you also have to use them correctly, sometimes a photograph can have details that are not needed and when used can throw the drawing off. In some cases it is best to just leave out certain details. In one of my art books it warns you about visual reference (The big bad world of concept art for video games, page 67) “The downside to using photos is that what you see (or can’t see) is what you get.”
Using photos as a reference is not the only use some artists will also use them to directly copy, some use them as a base (inspiration) and then paint over, and lastly there is photo mashing. Photo mashing is simply using multiple images and combining them (sort of like a collage). This is a very common technique that artist will use as it is one of the fastest methods to create a detailed piece in the shortest time.
The fundamentals of colour are something every artist needs to know. Using colour you can drastically change the atmosphere and meaning of a drawing. In the ‘digital painting tips and techniques’ colour is summed up perfectly “Colour is very important to the creative process. Understanding colour is paramount to being able to dissect reference materials or inspirational vistas or subjects. Understanding how colours behave within a piece or environment gives you an enormous advantage when it comes to creating your own visions.” Every artist is taught the basics of colour in the early years of school, but remembering that and applying them to your piece is a much harder and scarier thing. As a concept artist you need to understand how you want people to feel when looking at your work, and then apply the correct colours.
Once you have understood colours the next important part is lighting as this affects your colours as well as setting the tone for the entire image. “Light allows us to see what we’re looking towards, what shape it is, how far away it is, what is made of, and what it might be reflecting.” (Digital painting tips and techniques, page.34). Just like colour lighting can make you think or feel very deeply about an image, for example if you were to shroud someone in very harsh and dark shadows it would make you think of an evil or malicious character. Were as if someone was to glow you would think of an angelic or holy person.
The last four fundamentals all tie in together perspective, composition, scale and proportion. All these are factors of each other for example the perspective determines the scale and proportion of certain factors in the piece, and the composition determines all of it. So first thing you think of when going to create a landscape or stage is composition, this acts like a camera. It is up to the artist to frame their design into an aesthetically pleasing and proportionally correct image. Of course every landscape has its horizon line, background, foreground, and your focal points or subjects. “It’s basically the layout of elements and a visual vocabulary that leads your eyes around an image and makes it interesting…No detail, fancy colours, lighting or action will substitute composition.” (Beginners guide to digital painting in Photoshop, page.68). With every fundamental aspect there are the basic rules that help an aspiring artist, for composition this is the rule of thirds and the Golden Spiral. Using these two basic rules will help any artist create a basic but appealing image, many pros still use them and they can be applied to almost any image (including portraits.)
After composition the next important step (if creating a landscape especially) is perspective. Perspective is simply used to give an image the illusion of having depth often objects closer will be darker while objects in the background will be faded.
The last two fundamentals are scale and proportion, these two mainly tie in to characters although they do apply to most objects. Depending on the perspective the scale of the foreground subject will either be larger or smaller, for example if the cameras perspective was angling upwards at a character then they would be scaled bigger than normal and may look as tall as the buildings behind them. However if the camera was straight onwards then they would be scaled to their correct proportion to the objects near them. And this is where proportions play a heavy part, as if they are incorrect the entire image will appear to be off. Proportions tend only to be applied to a character but can also be useful for creatures. Manipulating somethings proportions can drastically change what they look like, for example if you hunched a humans back and bent the limbs you would get a very different image.
From talking with these artists and researching into different books I summarised that as a conceptual designer in the gaming industry you must be completely flexible and able to design a multitude of different things whether that is characters, environments, vehicles, props and also be able to design them in a range of different styles and themes. It is also important to be able to work in a variety of mediums to best convey the feeling and theme and to constantly practice the fundamentals of drawing. I am now going to apply what I have learnt to my project and document some of the results.
Implementing my research
From all the research I have gathered I have implemented it into my own Major Study, for this brief I am to design four main characters for a fantasy platform game. I will be showing of the design and development of two characters and explain what it is I did and what I have learnt. To begin with I invested into a Wacom drawing tablet and I already had Photoshop Cs5 so I decided to use this software. For this project I need to lay out a character sheet for my main character, so my orientation will be landscape. Like many of the tips suggested I changed the background colour to different colour so that the colours I would be using wouldn’t look flat.
I quickly sketched down my design for the character, I only focused on proportion and didn’t worry too much about it looking neat as the painting would be covering it anyway. For this character I have already consulted my client and they like the design but they are unsure of the colours to use, so I will be producing some options.
My next step was simply to block in the shape using a dark colour. This helps me find any mistakes to the silhouette and is in fact a quick way to find any proportion mistakes. In ‘Character design from the ground up’ (page 134) it mentions “Before colour is added, the character is tinted with a flat, neutral grey”. I have used a darker grey due to my background colour and because I will be using a lot of light colours over it.
Once this is done it is just a simple process of building up the colours, most artist suggest beginning with the skin as it covers most the body and is the hardest part to get right. In Photoshop you should always work from dark to light and so I blocked in all the darkest colours first.
The second part is to simply start working in were the light colours would be and begin blending them in. At this point you don’t need to focus too much on the smaller details but more about blocking in the general colour.
Once the general colours are in I began working in the finer details and neaten up the edges of the character. During this time you really have to zoom in on parts to get the finer details, for example in my drawing this was the eyes and feathers. My last bit of detail was adding the shadow to give a more 3D feel.
To create the second one I simply duplicated the other design and used the colour controls to change the feather colours. Once I decided on the colour I wanted my layout was complete all I needed to do was frame the design.
Conclusion
In conclusion from my research I have found that concept art is not a simple subject and there is very little background or resources to find out about it. Generally most information is scattered between a range of different subjects for example a concept artist needs the fundamentals of art, the knowledge of perspective and composition that photographers learn and finally the technical skills of digital art like many illustrators and graphic artists.
The most important aspects of the fundamentals are; colour, lighting, composition, proportion, perspective, and scale. Every artist should learn these if they wish to make any progress within the industry. Also unlike general misconception being a concept artist is not about making pretty illustrations, it is about imagining and creating unique and inspiring designs and then pushing them forward to be made into pleasing illustrations.
For any aspiring artist to enter the entertainment industry as a conceptual designer you must be extremely physically and mentally prepared for the challenges you will face as a designer, with constantly changing themes and briefs. To be the best you have to be able to produce unique and original designs for every piece no matter how mundane it is.