Y9 DM.A Vector Charater
Process Overview

What you will learn

You will learn to develop ideas for an audience and purpose, use vector tools to create an editable character, and improve your work through testing and feedback.

First: get to know your tools

Before designing your own character, try the essential vector tools in a short practice activity. Explore how shapes, colour, outlines and overlapping objects can work together.

Knowing what the tools can do will help you plan a character you can successfully build.

1. Define, Explore & Plan

Who is your character for? Where could it be used? What does it need to communicate?

Explore a few examples and identify useful design choices. Establish the requirements you will use to guide your decisions and check your finished work.

In the example: consider who the owl could appeal to and how its adventurous personality could suit its intended use.

2. Generate Ideas

Use subject + personality + distinctive feature to create different possibilities. Start with a circle, square or rectangle, then explore expression, proportions and a few distinctive details.

Sketch quickly so you can compare ideas before committing to one.

In the example: compare an adventurous owl with a propeller hat, an inquisitive alien with a question-mark antenna, and a clumsy robot with mismatched feet.

3. Develop Your Character

Choose a promising idea and ask for focused feedback. Refine its appearance, plan its colours and identify the shapes you will use to build it.

Write a short story that reveals its personality: what does your character want, what gets in its way, and what does it do?

In the example: develop the owl’s raised wings, upward gaze and propeller hat to communicate a sense of adventure.

4. Create Your Vector

Build your character using shapes and editable curves. Arrange objects carefully, use consistent colour and outlines, and organise related parts into groups.

Save your editable working file as you go.

In the example: build the owl in manageable parts—body, face, wings, feet and hat.

5. Test & Refine

Check your work against its audience, purpose and requirements. Does the personality come across? Are the important details clear? What happens when the character is viewed at a smaller size?

Use your own checks and feedback from others to make improvements. Keep a before-and-after example and explain why you changed it.

6. Adapt Your Character

Prepare your character for one chosen application. This might be a sticker and small icon, a pixel-art version, a short comic or a simple animated GIF.

Consider what needs to change for that use, including detail, size, layout and file format.

7. Present & Reflect

Share your finished work and explain how well it meets its purpose. Identify an improvement you made, what informed it, and what you learnt.

Acknowledge any sources or AI assistance you used.

You can revisit earlier decisions

The stages give you a starting route. You may return to your sketch after trying a tool, adjust your story as the character develops, or simplify a detail after testing it.

Record the decisions that help explain how your work improved.