For a few years I've been operating under something I've come to call "The Halloween Principle", which is captures how I feel about character design. The idea is that the easier it is to make a Halloween outfit of a character and still have people recognize who you are supposed to be, the better the design.

I don't have any evidence or data to suggest that this is "the right way" to design characters, nor would I necessarily say that it's how people should design characters. But it does kind of capture the kinds of character designs I like, so it works for me and I tend to adhere to it when I'm working out character concepts.

Specifically, I like characters that are more or less standard people, in off-the-shelf clothing, that just have a little something extra that lets you know it's them. Something unique.

I first started thinking about this on Halloween in New York City in 2004. And in fact the picture for this page shows the outfits that I'm about to reference.

Myself and my friend Atman decided to dress up as the Mario Bros., and our friend Sunny was to be Princess Mononoke (as an aside, Atman has traditionally been embarassed to have such photographs released into the public sphere, but due to his wanton destruction of the Mario Bros. outfits even though he had been entrusted with their safekeeping, I have unilaterally decided that he has forfeited any right to complain).

Myself, Atman, Sunny, and Sunny's boyfriend (now husband) Jeremiah all worked on her costume, as it was extremely complicated. Princess Mononoke has lots of specialty items as adornment, a very unusual construction for her actual clothes, a wolf pelt as a hood, a custom facemask worn on top of the hood, facepaint... the list goes on. In order to actually look like Princess Mononoke, you have to do a lot of work.

The Mario Bros. outfits, by contrast, involved myself and Atman buying two garishly colored shirts and hats, two matching pairs of overalls, and cutting out a felt M and L to glue to the hats. For good measure, we padded my stomach and put gold-felted buttons on our suspenders, but it's unclear either of those two things would have been at all necessary.

The end results were not commensurate with the effort. When we walked through New York City, everyone immediately knew who we were... in fact it was kind of startling the kind of welcome that Mario and Luigi get from New Yorkers. Princess Mononoke, on the otherhand, was only recognized by a few people - but to some degree, that is to be expected since it hasn't had the same kind of cultural penetration here as Mario Bros. did (for whatever reason).

The lesson stuck with me. It was so easy to dress up as Mario and Luigi, and everyone knew exactly who we were. They are the perfect examples of simplistic character design that still creates a long-lasting, recognizable impression. Most people can probably close their eyes and describe exactly what makes up a Mario or Luigi costume... yet even though I've constructed a Princess Mononoke costume, without photo reference I will often forget some of the important items.

So when I am working on character designs, unless there is an overriding reason why complexity should be the goal, I try to stick with the Halloween principle and make the simplest recognizable design I can.