A campaign lasts a season. A visual world, if it is well made, can last a decade. The difference is whether the art direction behaves like a set of rules or a living system.
Fixed points, open edges
Every world I build has a few fixed points, such as a light quality, a type size or a way of framing faces. Everything else is allowed to move with the season, the product or the collaborator.
Collaborators as authors
Photographers and stylists bring more when they understand the system rather than follow a moodboard. I write short briefs that describe feelings and constraints, not finished images.
I do not just build systems; I build moods that other people can inhabit.
Lúcia Prado