为 平面设计 lab specialist Amy Williams, successful design is all about adapting. Her degree in Illustration from Ringling College of 艺术 & 设计侧重于纸笔插画, but she translated those foundational skills to digital design as she entered the workforce. 今天, 艾米用她设计道具的经验, 创造电子游戏艺术, 和 working with freelance clients to show her students the importance of adaptability.

One of Amy’s first jobs was freelance prop work for movies 和 television shows. 她为霍尔马克的电影创作了道具画 三叶草他为警察制作警徽 本能 安东尼·霍普金斯主演, 和 designed prop concept sketches for Tom Hanks to use in the HBO miniseries 从地球到月球. 在做了几年自由职业者之后, Amy started looking for more consistent work 和 applied to a video game company called n-Space in Orl和o.

Working for n-Space meant that Amy had to take her physical concept art 和 turn it into digital assets. 因为那是数字艺术的早期, Amy had the opportunity to work with low resolution designs 和 grow her skills as the industry changed. She contributed to a series of successful Mary-Kate 和 Ashley games for PlayStation, as well as 学龄前儿童 游戏和一些第一人称射击游戏. Amy discovered that she loved the digital side of design 和 enjoyed working with software to apply skins onto 3D models for terrain 和 video game characters.

“I adapted pretty quickly because I had that base knowledge from art 和 design school. I found that all the rules 和 principles adapted to whether I'm doing movie props or video games, 不重要. 我能够适应，”她回忆道. “到最后, I was doing every stage of production… The last year I was [at n-Space], 我在做概念美术和模型制作, 但我更擅长建造地形. 我喜欢做建造世界的人.”

Amy teaches the importance of world-building 和 concept art in her 图形原理1 和 图形原理II 类. Concept art is one of the first steps in the design process – it determines the look of an entire project. 设计师将使用世界构建等技术, 缩略草图, 和 storyboarding to decide on a direction with their client, then take the concept 和 run with it to meet the client’s needs.

Amy’s also used her background in concept art to create an additional weekly workshop for students who are particularly interested in the process.

“I basically talk about all the [concept art] stuff that I've done in the past 和 what other people do in that part of production… We talk about storyboarding, 我们谈论的只是概念草图, 头脑风暴. Sometimes we're not even drawing, we're just talking to each other 和 sharing ideas. And sometimes we're up at the whiteboard in the front of class 和 we're all scribbling 和 coming up with ideas 和 notes 和 things. And it turns into a really good creative jam session,她说。.

Recently, Amy has called on her varied background to create diverse designs for multiple clients. She’s built educational materials featuring original superheroes 和 villains for statistics students, designed Florida-themed versions of Salesforce’s animated characters for the community-led Salesforce conference Florida Dreamin’, 和 worked on a few other projects that are currently under wraps. She says that being able to adapt to different projects can make all the difference when designers are looking for a steady stream of work.

“You have to pivot your style with every project that comes your way. 我想对项目说“是”. 我不想说，‘不，那不是我的风格. 那不是我的工作，我是一名商业艺术家. 我必须迎合这个品牌, 我必须向群众呼吁, 我必须向客户提出上诉, 我必须向我的老板申诉,她说。.

“And I think that's my biggest piece of advice to all of our students, 就是不要被自己的自我所束缚. I'd rather find out what you're not good at – what do you hate? 如果你不喜欢Illustrator，那就用它吧. Because I'd rather when they graduate, they say yes to projects. They may hate doing logos, but at least they know they can do it. I think that's the biggest thing I've learned over the years, 只是知道如何转动吗, 改变风格, 改变媒介, 无论是3D的还是纸上的.”