Write a style guide
A shortcut to having a style if you haven’t found one already, otherwise just a fun exercise.
If someone is struggling with style. Maybe this will help.
What is style?
My favourite answer to that question is by C.S.Lewis
“Style is knowing exactly what you want to say, and saying it exactly”.
It’s about the clarity of your message and the clarity of your delivery. If you start with your intention there is an endless possibility o how to deliver it, and so a style becomes much harder to define. Which is why I think people struggle.
But if you pick a consistent delivery first, you can easily reverse engineer C.S Lewis’s definition of style.
And you can get a clarity of delivery be defining it as a list.
Here I’ll give you 3 Styles for free:
Style 1:
Even weighted outline line
Pure black shadow
Single color for tone
Style 2:
Loose expressive line with a dry nib
Whimsical shapes
Filled with water color
Style 3:
2-4 weird Colors (like you’re color blind)
Doodle style characters with big hands and short bodies
Extra thick outlines
If you don’t have a style. Make 10 images using one of the styles above, and that can be your style, or write your own list. The point is to set some limits and work within that. If you don’t like the outcome after 10 images, change something on the list then try again.
Ps: if you’re subscribed, continue reading for how to tackle the “Knowing exactly what you want to say part.”