Friday 10 January 2014

Avatar Design

Avatar Design
I had been asked to design an avatar for a facebook page. The client called Oscar, is a music producer and DJ, he has a facebook page to keep people up to date with the music he makes. He wanted it to be a vector illustration, using simple shapes, so nothing too life-like, but wanted it look like him with a serious face. I received two photos from Oscar, so that when I create the avatar, I will have something to refer to.


The Illustration.
When creating the illustration I am going to try and use the first image so that it is more serious like he wants it, I am also going to make the face quite squared with very few curved edges.
I started by creating the shape of the face and thinking about the attributes that distinguish his face, so that I can make them clear so that people would recognise that its him. He has very blue eyes, a beard and mustache, and quite big hair, these are the things that I am going to accentuate.
I want to make the beard more detailed and styled, it also makes the face look less chubby, as before I think that it did.

The colour of Oscar's hair and beard are different, so I wanted to keep it the same on the avatar, also the first version with the hair and beard the same colour makes the face seem quite flat and one dimensional.
I thought that this resembles the client well so I decided to send it to him to see what he thinks about it. He was really pleased with the face and the aesthetic of the overall illustration, although he wanted the hair to be bigger.


I created two more different versions of the hair the first one is similar to the original illustration, but just slightly bigger. The second one I decided to make it into more of a quiff like look as that is what his hair is like, these are the only ways I could think to add volume to the hair. He was happier with the size of the hair and liked the second illustration better although he wanted it to be more rounded on the top of the hair, which although it doesn't follow the same aesthetic as the face, its fine if that's what he wants. He also suggested that the beard and mustache not to be connected. He wants the mustache to be curled up at the end.
I sent back this illustration without the white highlights in the hair, and he was very pleased with the illustration, but asked if I could make it look like the side of the hair was slicked back, this is when I added the white highlights.
I tried using the illustration on different coloured backgrounds for him, as he wanted to see what it would look like on different colours, although I prefer it on a white background. After seeing the colour background he said that he liked the colours although thinks it looks better on its own.

The clients facebook name is OWAY, and I found his page and took a screen shot so that I can see how he has actually used the illustration.

Evaluation.
If I were to do this again I would have done the mustache curled up straight away as that is what it looks like. I asked if the client needed anything else but he said he didn't. If I were to do it again I would insist on doing something for his cover photo so that he could have something that is similar to the avatar, or using similar colours so that they would have the same aesthetics. I am happy with the illustrated avatar, it was a short and quick brief, and something I really enjoyed doing, as I like creating illustrations especially charactor design.

No comments:

Post a Comment