Where Does Art Meet Design?

#game_designers #game_artists #minecraft #game_development

“When I grow up, I want to be a video game artist and designer.”

-          Me, Blog Author

What is A Game Artist vs. a Game Designer?

When you hear the titles ‘game artist’ and ‘game designer’, you might think, ‘Well, those are the people who make the art for the game,’ and you would be mostly right. These are two different roles that play separate, but intrinsically connected, parts.

Game art

is the visual feel of the game. You see a cool sunset background on the horizon of your First-person shooter -that was made by the game artist. You click to cast a spell in your Fantasy MMORPG -that icon was made by the game artist, etc.

Game design

is the function of the game, and the rules that run the user’s experience. You have a set amount of ammo in your shooter game -game designer. A particular spell goes off when you click a particular icon -game designer.

What do they do?

There are multiple roles within these titles that can stand alone or overlap; it just depends on the needs of the game.

Game artists include:

• Concept artists: The people who get out the ideas and make the visual first drafts

• Character artists: The people who make your iconic-looking PCs and NPCs

• Environment artists: The people who make the world for you to roam around in

• Lighting and Visual Effects (VFX) artists: The people who bring light to the game’s world and set the visual tone

• UI/UX (User Interface & User Experience) artists: The people who connect the visuals of the game to the function of the game

Game designers include:

• Game programmers: The people in the trenches, building the game’s framework

• Level designers: The people making the story of the game work inside the environment

• Narrative Designers: The main people writing character dialogue, item descriptions, and generally keeping the story flowing

• Technical specialists: The people who bridge art and design so that the game can run seamlessly on multiple platforms

There are still more game development roles that I have not covered here.

Who are they?

Allow me to use an example that I, and millions of others, have loved for years: Minecraft.

Minecraft Credits lists a whole team of developers, game artists, game designers, and more. Just in visual art alone, their team has 54 people as of 2/22/2026. Two people in particular, Kristoffer Zetterstrand and Sarah Boeving, created the paintings that you can craft in the game.

Thank you for reading!

Photo by Sei at unsplash.com