Design Fundamentals - Echoing

Hey everyone!

I want to talk about a design fundamental that's relevant to any kind of design - this applies to designing creatures, characters, or whole compositions for paintings - but for the sake of explanation I'll be focusing on creatures and characters as examples.

Echoing is the repeated use of the same or similar visual elements in a design. The repeated elements can be literal things within the design (say, an orc that has tusks all over the armor design, rather than only on the pauldrons), or more abstract visual elements such as shapes, colors, and patterns. Repeating visual elements ties them together and makes the design feel coherent and interconnected.

Here is a perfect example of this principle executed by the awesome Axel Sauerwald:

Now, if you look at the whole lineup of characters:

you can see the same elements (such as the triangle shape language, purple/grey/gold palette, squid cape patterns, tentacles) are repeating throughout, making the characters very cohesive and obviously intentionally designed.

Here are 2 simpler examples of echoing shapes in creature design from yours truly:

Application

Now, I always want to talk about a practical method applying these more abstract principles, and the best way to make sure you start using this consciously is to write down a little checklist before even beginning the drawing (there's a saying in Serbia that goes 'the wise man writes down, the fool remembers', and that's very applicable here). So, the process would look something like this:

-Write down the elements you will echo - shape, colors, pattern, literal, material

-Do some exploratory sketching while keeping echoing in mind

-Choose a sketch and consciously figure out and write down a specific value for each visual element that you'll be repeating; for example, let's take our orc:

shape: square, colors: red, grey, beige and green, literal elements: horns and nets, pattern: orcish writing/tattoos, material: fur and rusted metal

-Start your final designs!

Of course, as you get better at this, there would no longer be a need to write everything down, but then you'd have it in mind (hopefully consciously, but at the very least subconsciously).

Hope that was useful, feel free to ask any questions or share any thoughts :D

God bless!

Ognjen