Event Location

Attendee Categories

Student / Unwaged

Cost

£10.00

Additional Items

Student / Unwaged – Conference

18th July 2025

09:00 - 18:00

More Information

Concept art is gaining increasing cultural, creative and academic recognition. This once-invisible aspect of development and production is acquiring increasing presence across many branches of the entertainment industry, including animation, videogames, comics and theme park design. Volumes containing concept art have become staples of games publishing, while multiple paratexts providing insight into the production histories of successful properties and franchises. Film studios, games developers and production companies frequently open their archives to public appreciation across a variety of curated platforms.

The rise in courses teaching concept art reflects the burgeoning interest in this craft, and the importance of placing such traditions in historical, cultural and creative contexts. Character design is also increasingly significant within many branches of the culture industry. Toy companies have long drawn upon licensed characters to produce expansive ranges of collectable action figures, soft toys and plastic animals. Multiplayer videogames attract users through the squad of quirky avatars available to play. Within critical studies, the bodies of animated princesses, digital adventurers and anthropomorphised animals have attracted significant scholarly attention.

Concept art and character design connect many features of popular media production and consumption, being the locus of multiple creative, affective and commercial motivations and interests. Promotional material for games often centres on off-line graphic representations of characters and environments. Branding and merchandising places mascots at the forefront of their respective products. The craft is an essential part of the worldbuilding process and has lasting impact on the visual identity of long-running multimedia franchises. Concept art functions as a means of maintaining the visible coherence of intellectual property across multiple platforms, while the circulation of such material confers an aura of artistry and authenticity on commercial products.

This conference aims to explore historic and contemporary approaches to concept art and character design from multiple critical and creative perspectives.

Lunch & tea/coffee will be provided.