DIY Minimalist Portrait

I've always wanted to do one for myself, but never knew how. It just so happens that I was watching Daniel Scott's Adobe Illustrator CC — Essentials Training on Skillshare when he mentioned the Image Trace feature.

Illustrator is supposed to create vector graphics for designers, the type of image that does scale when amplified or zoomed in, unlike PNGs and JPGs. Behind the scenes, vector graphic images are just recipes for the computer to draw what the designer intended, the image itself isn't there at all. Usually, only simple shapes and images are advisable with this kind of format, otherwise the recipe might get unbearably long.

For a minimalist portrait this is exactly what you want, since your face features a lot of shapes which can be reduced to circles, squares, triangles, etc. For example, it's easy to imagine your eyes being reduced to a circle inside a pointy ellipse.

The steps to create the portrait are very easy, but it might not work very well depending on the picture you're basing it on. It's advisable to use a photo with good lighting and contrast, otherwise Illustrator won't be able to identify edges.

1. Open Illustrator on a new file.
2. Place (File → Place or Ctrl + P) your image onto the file or canvas.
3. Click on your image and, on the right-hand panel, click on Image Trace and select one of the modes for vectorizing your image.
   • There are several good options for this use case. The ones I would try first are: Low Fidelity Photo; 3 Colors; and Sketched Art.
4. Edit your image to your liking.
5. Export (File → Export → Export Screens or Ctrl + Alt + E) it as an SVG, PNG (preferably transparent) or JPG.

If I were you, I would copy-paste multiple times my own original picture and then create multple vector versions for comparison, always keeping the original for comparison.

Your image tracing might not come out 100% clean or as intended. You will probably need to trim or add a detail here and there, so it's very important to keep multiple iterations of your design during your process. Place them side-by-side so you can easily spot the differences and the progress. I'm making a copy of my project file so you can take a look at my thought process.