Recently, in a panel of established board game designers, these statements were made: "You're a game designer, not a game artist," and "I don't think of myself as an artist; I think of myself as an experience designer." Obviously, these views are not espoused by this blog. But I would like to spend some time unpacking why.
Who gets to be called an artist?
First, let's look at what practices fall under the heading of "fine arts:" painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, architecture, music, poetry, theatre, and dance. Art house cinema could also be included. I hope we can agree that all of these things listed are art.
However, fine art or high-brow art implies the existence of low-brow art. In this case, I do not mean poor quality art, but rather art that is accessible to the masses, both thru its reproducibility and it appeal. Spoiler alert: low-brow art is more commonly referred to as entertainment, as in "Arts & Entertainment." People working in 'art' fields often have the same skills as people working in 'entertainment' fields. Frequently, they're the same people. Patrick Stewart is both a trained Shakespearean actor and a superhero movie actor.
For what it's worth, I believe board games to fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, due to the limits of production, cost, and consumability (learning rules limits the number of games people can play in day). Neither fine art (except for certain games as art installations) nor low-brow art (except for mass market games).
Saying that only the people whose work is in museums and art history textbooks get to be counted as artists is gate-keeping. Rigidly defining what counts as art always leads to the arts losing funding. For the purposes of this blog, if the purpose of a work is creative expression then it is art. And yes, mechanics-driven designs are still creative expressions of a designer.
Are designers artists?
If you want to read my definition of design, go here. I hope we can all agree that graphic designers are artists. Architects are just building designers. Choreographers design dances. The use of 'design' as a term usually signals that functionality or practical concerns were a large part of the creation process. I fully admit that part of the confusion is that design means something different in STEM fields. But games are not feats of mechanical engineering; they are entertainment. And entertainment is art. And in the arts, designers are artists. Whether they want to call themselves that or not.
Why does it matter what term we use?
In the examples at the top of the post, the designers were responding to a question about how to balance perfecting your game versus just handing it off to publishers/getting it finished. The implication of the question and the responses is that artists are ego-driven and don't know how to deliver product on time. Or, more charitably, that people who describe themselves as artists (instead of designers) are that way. Either way, this perpetuates stereotypes that result in disrespecting and harming professional artists.
The word for an artist who never finishes a project is 'amateur.' I don't mean that to be derogatory, either. Professionals turn things in on time and get paid. Amateurs tweak and fiddle and don't get paid. Both are valid if your goals line up with your strategy. Assuming artists are all perfectionists is tantamount to calling artists amateurs. Which is pretty insulting to the illustrators and graphic designers who work on board games. It's also insulting to artists who design board games. The conflation of artist and amateur also feeds into the stereotype that we don't have real jobs and thus are not deserving of real benefits and protections.
Board game designer is an exact term that is useful. Board game artist is a hazy term that could mean a number of things. But just because 'chemist' is more exact than 'scientist' doesn't mean both can't be true at the same time.
In conclusion, by staunchly refusing to call designers artists, you are saying something about designers and about artists and how the two ideas need to be kept separate. I work in a field professionally that has a similar dynamic. In spite of having 'artist' in my job title, I may not be included as part of the creative team. I'll delve into this more in my next post on art vs. craft. However, the take away is that how members of creative teams are viewed affects how much they get paid. So I have a financial interest in educating people about harmful stereotypes in the arts.
Artists aren't (necessarily) amateurs. Designers are artists.
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