art director

[ahrt di-rek-ter, dahy-]

noun

1. Movies, Television.,  the person who determines the staging requirements for a production and often designs the sets or supervises their building and dressing.

2. Also called art editor. a person who is responsible for the selection, execution, production, etc., of graphic art for a publication, advertising agency, or the like.

3. artistic director.

art director

noun

1. a person responsible for the sets and costumes in a film

Word History and Origins

Origin of art director¹

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

Then there’s Phil Hayes’s efforts as the art director and background specialist.

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“There’s a lot of anxiety around technology and the way we engage with it,” said Joseph Alessio, a designer and art director in Oakland, Calif.

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We’d met the summer before on his first feature film, Dementia 13, where I had assisted the art director.

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Before breaking into the entertainment industry in 1964 with the short film “A Texas Romance, 1909,” Benton moved to New York and was an art director for Esquire magazine.

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Ryman’s work was in fact an iteration of sorts, based upon years of master planning from Walt Disney and early collaborator Marvin Davis, a cinematic art director responsible for much of Disneyland’s early designs.

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