Creative Guide: Express your personality through pattern and typography with Kris Andrew Small

Imagine the New World. We think it’ll be a place where our identities are fluid, not limited by images or words. So for this Creative Guide, Kris is asking you to use collage to express your New World identity through a self portrait featuring a patterned background. This pattern will sit behind a photograph of yourself, communicating aspects of your identity and personality not visible at first glance.

The first thing you need to do is pin-down your vision of your New World identity. Start by describing yourself through keywords; emotions, colours, movements, your relationship to nature, phrases, feelings you want to give out or attract. Then, Kris suggests coming up with a mantra for your New World self.

Word association can help when generating ideas for your mantra. Try writing as many words as possible that relate to the core idea of your mantra, with no judgment, don’t rule any word out, and let your mind go on a tangent. You can then start to draw connections between these words to create the phrase for your mantra. We’ll be using this mantra in step 05 so make a note of it somewhere.

Kris Andrew Small: I think in the New World, my work and personality would be aligned as one. I would want my thoughts, views and emotions to be reflected in the work and so I will use bright contrasting colours and a lot of movement and boldness in my self portrait to express my personality. The work will be full of movement to align with my energy.

My mantra is “Stay on it”. In a way, it’s my version of “Just do it”. If you just keep working, keep on your game and keep true to yourself then you will always be able to find the inspiration or the drive to make work. If you try to shut out the noise of the world and focus on you, your story and what you want to make, it’s a lot easier to stay focused. The best way to think about your New World mantra is to imagine what you would like to tell yourself every morning when you wake up. What would that one phrase be that would make you want to get up and make work that you were proud of, that would make you happy and/or that would tell your story? Try not to overthink it.

Now you need to take photos of your environment which you’ll manipulate in Photoshop to literally create a New World; these images will come into use later on in the project. Have a look around your house or go for a walk and snap anything you think could be turned into an interesting texture. This is something Kris does regularly in his work. Using a black and white filter (“Noir” is great for this) whilst taking a photo in Camera on iPhone is a handy way to focus on just shapes and patterns, and filter out the distractions of colours. 

Aim to gather five-ten photographs and begin to play around with them in Photoshop to see what patterns you can draw out of them. You can gather images through online research, of course, but photographing patterns you find at home or when out on a walk is the best way to complete this step. Below is a video in which Kris shows you how to manipulate your images in Photoshop.

KAS: I started making patterns when I worked in advertising. I was quite frustrated at the time and I think this was my way of dealing with it. Over time, I’ve realised that these patterns really change and reflect my mood. For example, when I’m calm I make very ethereal gradient works that seem light and calm. When I’m more restless or agitated, the works seem more complicated, harsh and messy. It’s such a good way to add organic or natural energy to your work.

At the heart of your self portrait is going to be a photograph of yourself so you need to choose which image you want to use now. Have a look in Photos and find an image that you feel expresses your New World identity, or take a new one using your Camera on iPhone. You can then edit the image to ensure it really supports your identity and your mantra. This could mean cropping the image, making it black and white or adding a filter to it.

KAS: I have chosen a photo with a tight crop but with lots of movement and a dynamic angle. This means I already have an energy to the image to start with and can add on top to give it even more. I would just find an image that you like and that feels the most “you”. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and use an image that is very natural. We are going to add lots of personality in the graphics, so the photo can be quite simple. It’s best to make the background very simple too as we will be layering a lot of thing on top of it.

It’s now time to sketch some typography for your portrait, using your New World mantra. You can go totally freehand here, use an existing typeface or even modify an existing typeface. Whatever you choose, it should denote your identity in some way or another. If you’re totally new to typography, Kris has outlined some tips below.

Photoshop’s Adjustments section is being used a lot in this step, so if you haven’t done this already, you might want to have the Adjustments toolbar visible at all times. You can do this by clicking on Window and making sure Adjustments is checked. 

KAS: Start treating the letters or words as shapes that can be arranged around a page. Drop all the design rules around kerning, leading etc and just play with the letters. Try and make an interesting composition with the text on the page and don’t be afraid to make it all different sizes and scales or play with colours. Basically, forget everything you’ve ever learnt about typography and just allow yourself to play with it.

I’ve modified an existing typeface using the Distort tool in Photoshop. Much like in the step before, I played with the scale and size of each letter to create more fun and interesting letterings.

This is perhaps the stage in the project where you can say the most about your identity as it’s now time to design the abstract background of your self portrait. Bring together all of the colours, textures and brushes you’ve discovered throughout the project and go wild. You can also play with the photos you took in step 02.

Kris has designed a series of abstract patterns that you can use as the backdrop for your self portrait if you’d prefer and these can be downloaded below. You can jump straight to step 07 if you choose to work with Kris’ designs.

Whether your collage is loud and bright or introspective and calm, we want to see what you’ve created by completing this Guide. Make sure you share your work on social media, explaining the message of your collage. Use #CreativeNewWorld and #TodayAtApple, and also tag @krisandrewsmall.