Nightly Sketch Nr. 212

Tyrion is another character from G. R. R. Martins novels (“A Game of Thrones” – there is detailed information about him within the wiki of ice and fire). See this post for some thoughts on Cersei Lannister.

The character design needs to make him look misfigured (as Martin describes him) yet cunning – still some way to go

While reviewing several corporate designs we did at FAZIT:DESIGN (Wiesbaden, Germany) during the last years, I found a subtle regularity concerning the colouring. It’s not too obvious and it isn’t visible in every design, so that one doesn’t immediately come to realize it. But it’s definetely there: a correlation between the colours of the clients physical appearance (skin, eyes, hair) and the colours he prefers to see used in his corporate design.

The correlation seems to fall apart where there have been several people involved in the decision process, but as long as there has been only one person deciding upon which design should be used, it occurs in some cases.

A similar phenomenon has been observed before, though in different context. I rembered a passage in “Kunst der Farbe” by Johannes Itten (ISBN-10: 3363009798, Page 23). In the book Itten describes how he tried to teach a class of students, that the combinations or “accords” of colours should be objectively chosen. His students protested and he gave in to let them test an alternative approach: they would paint colour accords based upon their individual tastes. The result was a very subjective outcome, where the colourings resembled the colours of the students faces.

What could one make of this?

Well, with the psychological part being the source for the most time consuming obstacles during the development of a corporate design, it would perhaps be tempting to “generate” the colour range from the clients looks.

Coming from a strictly conceptional based approach to corporate design, my first impulse is, that this would be utterly wrong, since the appearance of anything concerning the business needs to be tuned to fit the market.

However, there may be businesses where this might be applied and work well for the client. Imagine a corporate design for a freelancing consultant. The “product” his clients are buying, is his time and his expertise. For the classical one-man-show this means that they are meeting him in person and thus get “exposed” to his looks anyway. Thus, if the corporate design makes use of some of his colours, the overall customer experience could be even more consistent.

For the internal psychological part it could make it easier for him to identify himself with the appearance of his business. Thus his behaviour could be positively influenced in terms of self-confidence and he could be more positively remembered.

What do you think?

Nightly Sketch Nr. 207

Brillant actor – I’ve seen him recently in “Things We Lost in the Fire”.

Cersei is a character from G. R. R. Martins splendid novels of the “Song of Ice and Fire” series. If you haven’t read them, do it. These books are brillant (and a highly addictive read).

Martin describes Cersei as a beautiful, blond woman with light green eyes and a slender statue. Plus she is extremely ambitious and ethically misguided. See the wiki of ice and fire for details.

Thinking about the character design of this tough queen, a slightly feline physiognomy comes to my mind. To achieve this, we need her to have wide cheekbones and a rather short nose. The eyes are especially important for this: we need to draw them farther apart than usual and give them a slight tilt, so that the inner corners are a bit deeper than the outer ones.

With these features, we’d already get a feline look, but that’s not enough – we need a wicked kitty. Hooded eyelids will do fine to improve the tough and challenging look and as a diabolic extra we’ll draw slightly pointed eyebrows.

And with a hairstyle which befits a Lady of Lannister (think: lion), that’s one possibility of what she could look like (roughly drawn):

Nightly Sketch Nr. 206

… just in case you wondered: Yes, I do think Tricia Helfer would be a splendid Cersei