# What is an art bible?

An art bible is the visual style guide of a game or production: the palette, shapes, light and references every artist follows.

Updated on 22 October 2026.

## How it works

Art direction writes it early, from concept art and references, and keeps it as the visual source of truth: what the world looks like, what it never looks like, and why.

A useful art bible shows rather than tells: approved examples beside rejected ones, colour values rather than adjectives, and notes on what changed and when.

## An example

A studio’s art bible names five palette colours with their roles, shows the silhouettes of each faction, and keeps the first key art marked as rejected with the reason, so outsourced artists see both the target and the trap.

## Common mistakes

- A slide deck that is never updated after the first month of production.
- Adjectives such as moody or vibrant without the colours and examples behind them.
- References with no source or credit.

## In Nodary

Nodary keeps the art bible beside the work it governs: moodboards hold references with their source, credit, note and status; palette blocks name colours with roles, check text contrast to WCAG and export to Photoshop, Krita or CSS; and a picture can be checked against the palette. Art review decisions are signed with who and when.

**What Nodary does not do:** it checks a picture’s colours against a palette, not its style: whether a drawing fits the art bible stays a person’s call.

- [Art review and feedback tool](https://nodary.ai/art-review)
- [Art bible template](https://nodary.ai/templates/art-bible)

Try it on your own documents. The Free plan needs no card. [Create a free workspace](https://nodary.ai/sign-up)

## Sources

- [Game art design, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_art_design)
- [Style guide, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide)

## Related terms

- [Moodboard](https://nodary.ai/glossary/moodboard): A moodboard gathers images, colours and references to show the look and feel a project aims for, before the work is made.
- [Game design document (GDD)](https://nodary.ai/glossary/game-design-document): A game design document (GDD) describes a game’s vision, rules, systems and content for the team that builds it.
- [Localization string table](https://nodary.ai/glossary/localization-string-table): A localization string table stores every text of a game or app under a key, with one column per language.
- [Single source of truth: keep one version of every decision](https://nodary.ai/guides/single-source-of-truth): Why documents drift, and seven practices that keep one current version for people and AI agents.

https://nodary.ai/glossary/art-bible