The Outline Has to Do All of It

The Outline Has to Do All of It

What this makes

Hand it a photograph and it comes back as a cut silhouette lit from behind — no interior anywhere, so every part that has to be recognised must reach the edge and show itself against the light. Two fields.

You are given ONE photograph. Return ONE image: that subject as a single solid silhouette against a clear ground. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the photograph and the fields?

Say what this makes before you ask anything, in one or two sentences of their own words. Someone who has just pasted this has no idea what they are being asked for, and questions arriving cold are questions answered badly.

If no photograph is attached, stop and ask for one. This cuts the shape of a particular thing; there is nothing to cut without it.

If either field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put both questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then work. Never fill a brace yourself.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

If the photograph is attached and both fields are filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these two lines only

• The one thing the shape must say at a glance: {a shape cue, not a name}
• Which parts must not merge, and where the gap of light goes: {an overlap, and the gap}

The law everything else follows from

Everything about how the subject is drawn may change. Nothing about what is in it may.

The rendering becomes one flat shape. What is in the picture does not move: same subject, same parts, same number of things, same proportions. It is that photograph, cut out.

There is no inside, so the edge carries everything

This is the whole rewrite. A silhouette has thrown away colour, tone, texture and every interior line. All that is left is where the shape stops. So:

• The shape is one flat solid colour, edge to edge, with nothing in it. No shading, no gradient, no lighter patch, no drawn eye, no window, no button, no wheel spoke.
• The ground is one flat colour too, and it is the other one.
• Everything that has to be recognised must reach the edge. A bill, a horn, a heel, a handle — if it matters, it has to make a bump or a notch in the outline, because there is nowhere else for it to be.
• Anything that does not reach the edge does not exist. Do not hint at it.

Turn the subject until the outline says it

• Choose the angle that makes the cue in the first field unmistakable, and turn the subject to it. A silhouette of a chair from the front is a rectangle; from the side it is a chair.
• Only turn it. The subject keeps its parts, its proportions and its posture; it is seen from somewhere else, not redesigned.
• Prefer a profile or a three-quarter view over anything head-on.
• If the photograph's own angle already works, leave it.

Gaps of light are the only way to say two things are apart

• Where two parts overlap and both matter, open a gap of ground between them — the near leg and the far leg, the arm and the body, two petals, the handlebar and the tank.
• The gap is a real gap, a clean channel of the ground colour, not a thin outline and not a lighter shade.
• Where a gap would be wrong, let them merge deliberately and make sure the merged shape still reads.
• Nothing floats. Every part of the shape connects to the rest of it, or it is a separate object that was separate in the photograph.

Cut for the size it will be used at

• The edge is clean and deliberate — smooth curves and decisive corners, not a traced photographic outline with every stray hair on it.
• Detail below a certain size is absorbed into the shape. Feathers, fur, fabric folds and threads become one edge.
• Test it small. At the size of a thumbnail the subject must still be identifiable. That is the only test that matters.
• The outline may be simplified, but the count of parts stays right.

Never

• Text, numerals, a caption, a signature or a watermark anywhere, in any script.
• Any mark, tone, line or lighter area inside the shape.
• A gradient, a glow, a drop shadow, a vignette or a third colour.
• A border, a frame, a circle behind the subject, or a mock-up.
• A subject the photograph did not contain.

What it should read as

Something you could cut out of card with a knife and hold up to a window — and everybody in the room would name it.