A publisher approached me to produce an infographic book. Now any editor, author or designer who has created one of these will know how intensive these popular little books can be. My task was made more testing when the commissioning editor added to the brief 25 portraits of tennis stars, illustrated in style to match the infographic charts and graphs. I was up for the challenge..

The trend for 'geometric portraits' of the famous has been growing in recent times with the talents of Stanley Chow and Daniel Nyari. The work of both was provided as examples of the direction that the tennis star illustrations should go. So what follows are some behind-the-scenes and a finished example of my take on geometric portraiture.

Making the face fit

In my opinion, good illustration begins with reference. Google images is a great place to start as any. I also found YouTube invaluable because (for me) when attempting a caricature it is important to get a feel for the living breathing person, to see their facial mannerisms and offers more insight than the single moment in time a photograph provides.

My application of choice for this kind of job is the ubiquitous Adobe Illustrator. Careful plotting out the location of eyes, nose and mouth come next, along with the general shape of the head.

I then constructed the face with a series of geometric outline shapes. This part of the process is perhaps the most intuitive and non-formulaic. To help keep things symmetrical I use a workaround which mirrors on the vertical axis, giving a live preview which makes for a more natural way of illustrating. I will also add non-symmetrical elements where needed to provide more personality.

Adding colour is a combination of taking samples from the reference photographs and mixing from scratch to produce the right balance on the face.