DI-7 2016

It's mostly all about silhouettes.
For the Dezign Inzpiration issue 7 I'll focus on Silhouettes one of the many forms of art I love to play with in design as well in my drawings, Silhouette is an all-time favourite. What makes it one of the most recognized forms of art is the fine detailing and intricate aesthetics.​

​For those who don’t know what a ‘silhouette’ is… In simple terms it's any image represented as a solid shape of a single color (usually black) against a lighter coloured background.

We can define silhouette as a filled outline of any person, animal, object or scene, only more detailed while its interior is featureless and  in solid color.
For a better understanding, a very simple example to explain silhouette is shadow theatre.

In this particular form of theatre the artists perform behind a screen and not in front of it. Either flat articulated figures (shadow puppets) are used to create cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or the artists themselves act behind the screen to display shadows that  tell stories.

The cut-out shapes of the puppets are highly detailed and are used to achieve various effects by moving them.
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The practice of silhouette initially used to create portraits. Prior to the advent of photography, silhouette profiles cut from black card were the cheapest way of recording a person's appearance.

​It started as a cheap but effective alternative to the portrait miniature, and skilled specialist artists could cut a high-quality bust portrait, by far the most common style and was very popular in the mid-18th century.

Here are a few apps for silhouette related functions. 

And here a few games

And some music

Though how this word came in existence is a very interesting story.

The word silhouette derives from the name of Étienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister who, in 1759, was forced by France's credit crisis during the Seven Years' War to impose severe economic demands upon the French people, particularly the wealthy.

Because of his austere economies, de Silhouette's name became synonymous with anything done or made cheaply and so with these outline portraits. The term silhouette, although existing from the 18th century, was not applied to the art of portrait-making until the 19th century.

And since then it has become a great part of many ways. So keep making and innovating how else you can use this cool form. 

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