Nominating a creative director

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday 28 May 2008, Riccardo Iaconelli wrote:
> He knows his topic, he knows about art, about design, about usability
> and its generic principles. HCI (Human Computer Interaction).
> Infact, he was one of the founding members of the e.V. HCI working
> group (which has been closed lately, though).

he wasn't part of the HCI group due to usablity expertise. not knocking him, 
just making it clear.

> That's just a way to give him a bit more of power in plasma... that

it's got nothing to do with power and everything to do with coordination. if 
it is seen as a means to gain more direct control, the point has been 
completely missed and this will end up failing.

the creative director would take it upon themselves to:

* ensure there is a defined visual goal. note that this is not necessarily the 
same as defining it themself; they can (and should) make it an effort that 
takes several voices into consideration

* coordinate those working on art and those using it in the code

* communicate regularly about what is happening

* discover limitations put upon visual elements due to technical issues 
(systray is a good example here) and either push at the technical 
implementors (coders) or adjust the visual implementation (or both) to 
achieve harmony

* make the "hard" decisions when needed to avoid just discussing different 
points of view without any final decision being made

this is, as you can see, not about power at all but about coordination.

> last final word on the complicated design issues probably, or on
> not-easily solvable artwork problems. The hand that makes the mocks
> and voice that calls for help in making those become true.

this is not what an art/creative director does. they are usually not the hand 
that makes the mockups; at the very least they are rarely the only hand. 
again, this goes back to *coordinating* rather than talking about the act of 
creation itself.

simply creating a directorial role that says, "you will now do it this way" is 
not needed, not wanted and not appropriate.

i'm completely for a coordinator and someone to make the art processes work 
better. but they'll need to do it a lot more like what i do with the code 
than what you're describing here.

> And, most importantly, ensuring he is able to comfortably define the
> whole interaction/visual concepts from inside the project...

i am not comfortable with the interaction concepts being defined in this way. 
in part because it would require someone who has a very broad understanding 
of the topics at hand which are pretty much not related to artwork at all. 
the interaction is driven by usaiblity and technical possibilities; i've been 
defining the basic course here, and many others have been contributing to it 
as we go.

the interaction issues are not the problem here, nor do i think that an art 
director would actually be suited for that.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech
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