Reading Shapes

Start by asking students if they have ever read comics or watched cartoons or animated movies. What are (or were) some of their favourites?

If students are reluctant to name any, ask them foryounger siblings’ favourites.

Point out that the character design of a comic or cartoon character is very important. It tells you a lot about a character right away, and a good character has a very memorable design.

Have students access the student chapter How Do We Read Shapes? or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.

Explain that while we’re not always consciously aware of it, but shapes have a lot of personality. If each of these shapes was a person, how would you describe them?

• For younger students, you may want start by having the class make a list of words you could use to describe someone. Then have students pick the ones that these shapes make them think of.

Progress to the second slide and then explain that squares and rectangles feel strong and reliable, but they can also feel inflexible like a wall or a locked door.

Progress to the third slide and explain that circles feel friendly and open, because they don’t have any straight lines or sharp points.

Progress to the fourth slide and explain that triangles, on the other hand, are all points, so they may feel dangerous and unpredictable.

Progress to the fifth slide and explain that we can modify shapes in different ways to get more complex effects. One way of doing this is to mix shapes, just like we get new colours by mixing them.

Go to the sixth slide and explain that rounding a square’s corners gives us a combination of its strength and the safety of the circle for a protective feeling.

Progress to the seventh slide and explain that rotating shapes can change how we read them, too. Flipping a triangle de-emphasizes the points and gives it the strength of a square, giving a sense of being powerful.

Go to the eighth slide and explain that changing the balance of a square by tilting it, on the other hand, emphasizes the points by making them sharper. This can make an inflexible square feel more dynamic, but it can also give a feeling of being unstable or off-kilter.

Advance to slide nine and tell students that making a shape off-balance – by tilting it or just adding an extra line – can add character even to a simple stick figure. Even if you don’t know this character, created and drawn by Matt Feazell, is named Cynicalman, you can guess his personality just by looking at him.

Progress to slide ten tell students that comics and animation artists put a lot of time and thought into a character’s design, and shapes are a big part of that.

Ask students to compare the drawings of Batman and Superman. What shapes are used in their designs? Which do the two characters have in common, and which are different? How does that affect how we see the characters?

• Optional: Distribute the handout Superman Vs. Batman and have students draw shapes directly on the handout to help visualize them.

After students have discussed this for a few minutes, advance to slide 11 and explain that Like most superheroes, they both are built around the inverted triangle that gives a sense of power. (Superman even has a second inverted triangle on his chest.) The rest of Superman is all rounded squares. This gives us the feeling that his power is mostly used for protection, like a shield.

Go to slide 12 and explain that Batman, on the other hand, is made up mostly of triangles, giving him a more aggressive, dangerous look. Most of the triangles are asymmetrical, with uneven sides. This use of balance increases the feeling of danger and unpredictability, in contrast to Superman’s stolid, dependable look.

• Point out that each of the characters also stands slightly at an angle to give them a bit of dynamism: if a character is too balanced they seem static and dull.

Go to slide 13 and explain that If we wanted to show Superman protecting people by blocking bullets with his chest, on the other  hand, we might give him a wider, more balanced stance. Now he’s almost totally symmetrical, with just his waving cape giving us a bit of dynamism.

To make Batman feel safer and more kid-friendly, we could take out most of the triangles by shortening the ears and curving the spikes on his gloves. Making his shoulders rounder, adding the round black highlight to the mask, and putting the bat on his chest inside an oval all add circular shapes to the design, giving him a safer, friendlier look as well.

Advance to slide 14 and ask students to compare the character designs for Batman and Batgirl.

• Point out that these are both from  the same series, so they were made by the same artists and intended for the same audience.

While there are some obvious differences (like size) remind them to focus on the shapes that are used in the designs.

Let students discuss the differences for a few minutes. Make sure the following points are raised:

The Batgirl design does have triangles, but they’re less prominent than the Batman design: the spikes on her gloves and the wings of her bat-emblem are less sharp, and the scalloping on the end of her cape is shallower.

Her chest is an inverted triangle like Batman’s but her shoulders are rounded, like the kid-friendly Batman, so the sense of being powerful is not as strong.

Only the bat-ears are about as triangular as Batman’s, and even those aren’t tilted back like his for a less dynamic effect.

Everything rectangular in Batman’s design – the straight rectangles of his belt and the rounded rectangle of his head – becomes a circle for Batgirl: a single circular buckle on the belt, and an oval head whose roundness is underlined by the blue highlight. The hair coming out of her hood adds extra curves too.

Finally, while Batman’s eyes are tilted triangles, Batgirl’s are each a double circle, with a full circle inside a pointed oval. The point and angle of the ovals still give her a somewhat unpredictable, mischievous look, but not the menacing look Batman has.

After students have discussed this for a bit, go to slide 15. Explain that shapes in character design can be used to code gender for characters that aren’t human, like cartoon animals, and even ones that aren’t male or female like robots.

For example, in the movie Big Hero 6, Baymax is a robot designed to be a nurse – a job we usually associate with women. His basic form is all circles and ovals.

His fighting armour, on the other hand, gives him the inverted pyramid we saw on Batman and Superman, turns the ovals into rounded rectangles, and adds some triangles (the wings and antennae). Now he’s made of “male” shapes to match his new role as a fighter and protector, something we often see as a “male” role.

Explain that in this movie, the use of shapes to code gender was a conscious decision by the film-makers: Bayman has to be literally stuffed into the armour—a visual way of showing how some people feel forced to behave the way other people think boys or girls “should” act.

Ask students if they have ever done an exercise like this before and, if so, how anything might have changed since they did so.