Define art direction

Turn the intended feeling into observable rules that prompts, code, motion, and graphic assets can share. Keep the contract small enough to use during production.

Establish visual authority

Read selected references, existing contracts, owner decisions, and rejected studies. Follow explicit decisions over rough previews. Preserve unrelated choices. If direction is exploratory, label the contract as a candidate and provide distinct studies when those help settle it.

Derive subject, audience, cultural context, style, and medium from the brief. References illustrate selected traits; they do not supply unrelated project requirements.

Check currency when historical prompts disagree with production or runtime contracts. Record the active source instead of carrying stale counts, dimensions, or implementation assumptions into another batch.

Use concrete visual language. Replace "cute," "premium," or "cozy" alone with the traits that create the feeling: proportions, edge behavior, value grouping, material, spacing, lighting, and movement.

Write the contract

Use CONTRACT.md for the fields relevant to the deliverable. Omit irrelevant fields; a logo needs different rules from a rendered game world.