Personified Animals

May 09, 2014

I have to build a "culture free" course, and thought to use personified animal characters. Just cannot seem to find any on the web. Any suggestions?

18 Replies
Joshua Roberts

Bruce do you work with one illustrator who would almost be a 'team' member? I'm looking to build a relationship with someone who can produce images like this for me on a more bespoke basis. Although I'm weighing up the options of cost between the two, someone who creates the exact image I want or a potentially cheaper price but the image not being as close to my interpretation.

Bruce Graham

Joshua Roberts said:

Bruce do you work with one illustrator who would almost be a 'team' member? I'm looking to build a relationship with someone who can produce images like this for me on a more bespoke basis. Although I'm weighing up the options of cost between the two, someone who creates the exact image I want or a potentially cheaper price but the image not being as close to my interpretation.

I work with one person, have done since I found her for the original "StoryLion", and we have a fabulous relationship. The style above is my "house" style, simple, can be adapted to corporate colours, and the "badge" motif makes it easy to illustrate WHO people are, and what type of document they are (for example), without getting bogged down in detail. These are all bespoke as such, I now have a library of hundreds of them, many of which I re-use with minimal changes. PM me if you would like her details.
Bruce Graham

Judy Nollet said:

Mariecel, here's another option to consider:  Use the Storyline characters -- but adjust the brightness level down until they are silhouettes. That eliminates some cultural issues. Alas, it also eliminates facial expressions. But it can work for many situations.


Hey Judy...

Probably missed it on the forums before but I absolutely LOVE the photo characters used like that. That opens LOADS of possibilities.

Thanks

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro

Judy Nollet said:

Mariecel, here's another option to consider:  Use the Storyline characters -- but adjust the brightness level down until they are silhouettes. That eliminates some cultural issues. Alas, it also eliminates facial expressions. But it can work for many situations.


Just seeing this post today, but wanted to say I was about to post this same idea...obviously Judy beat me to it by a week! I was playing around with some ideas yesterday for silhoutted headshots, such as this one of Atsumi.

Bruce Graham

Alex O'Byrne said:

Hi Bruce, 

Are those hedge fund images you posted made by you or your illustrator? Just curious as they are quite easy to replicate, they look very good just curious to see if you pay for them?


I get my illustrator to do them.

She can create about 4-6 per hour, and her prices are excellent.

I cannot draw that well - and she's tax deductible

Jeff Kortenbosch

Bruce's basic character illustration and the silhouettes are brilliant examples of creating a clean look without people getting a particular 'negative feeling' towards the characters.

Not sure if animals is the way to go, as there are pleny of cultural themes around animals. Cows are seen as holy in some cultures where pigs are seen as sinful creatures...

If you want to shift away from possible culture issues simplifying the characters clothing style and hair and skin style could work for you. Check out these characters I gave away in an earlier post

Alex O'Byrne

Bruce Graham said:

Alex O'Byrne said:

Hi Bruce, 

Are those hedge fund images you posted made by you or your illustrator? Just curious as they are quite easy to replicate, they look very good just curious to see if you pay for them?


I get my illustrator to do them.

She can create about 4-6 per hour, and her prices are excellent.

I cannot draw that well - and she's tax deductible


Ah, well that makes sense! 

Bruce Graham

Seems to me this is very easy to "over-think".

The images are often there to illustrate a message. Make the message strong - and people will not really care about the detail of the images.

Here's an image taken at a recent Board Meeting. There's a Chair, 3 x Sales Directors, 2 x Operations Directors (one of whom is FULL of ideas), and a rather shy new member.

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