What are some of your personal philosophies that you incorporate into this specific art style?
I really appreciate this question a lot. My philosophies mostly stem from my training as an anthropologist. I use this and instill it upon the rest of the artists in the concept department, and they take this thought and apply it to their designs.
Allow me to specify: My education delved into studying societies and cultures. My personal studies liked to focus on symbols. Anthropologists call this "semiotics." Symbols are important to a society. They can be specific or very broad. Also, they can be iconographic or implied. What the French may perceive as an important symbol might not be the same for Brazilians - in fact, the definitions may be inverse to one another, based around a certain idea.
But enough about semantics. Semiotics allows me (and subsequently the concept department) to construct both worlds of Fallout: Equestria - the pre-war and the post-war periods. The pre-war is an evolution of what we see in the TV show. The post-war is the evolution of the pre-war society, and what gruesomely mutated from the environment.
So, there is a lot of extrapolation and hypotheses of how the world works in both periods. Symbols change over time. Cultural ideals morph into new ones from the old. It was said in the opening of the story that ponies steered away from the idealism of friendship and kindness and delved into a pool of greed and decadence. But even then, there are still cultural veins that would be common in themes and design.
A great example would be the Steel Rangers and the Applejack's Rangers. The Steel Rangers were once cold and calculated, destroying anyone who had a scrap of advanced technology. The Applejack's Rangers rebelled after such action, and became the protectors of the Equestrian Wasteland, but still utilize basic ideas and functions of their predecessors, such as their armors, their structure, and their operations. But used in a wholly different fashion: Instead to preserve technology, they preserve life.
I also mentioned in another post that I had design revolve around three points: Fallout design, Equestrian (pony) aesthetic, and biology. This id directly influenced from my education, and it drives what concept does. It's a blend of all three points: You have the game, Fallout. It has a lot of American influences - It's like watching an old sci-fi film from the 50s. Also, heavy, sharp and bulky. You then have what you see in the MLP TV show. Lots of flowing shapes in architecture and scrolling. Look at Ponyville, it's everywhere. Then you have biology - Just how the hell does a pony use anything in this world? This is the most important, as you have to make machines and devices that cater to a pony, not a human.
Taking all of these points, you've essentially created the basis of the concept department's design philosophy. Sometimes it's not followed strictly, and sometimes it defines certain aspects of design.