Hair & Make-up Design

Can you create hair and make-up designs that portray a character's personality?

Design hair and make-up for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Try to communicate their differing personalities and when and where they are from.

You will need to research the period and fashions of their time and listen carefully to what they say and how they say it.

There are some templates you can use at the bottom of this page, alternatively create your own or add designs to images cut from a magazine. You might start with basic quick sketches and then as you develop your ideas your final designs should contain colour and annotations where possible. You could even include texture.


Please annotate (add notes to) your design so we can see the reasons for you design decisions.

Take a photo of your designs and email your work to

paul.graham-bell@leedscitycollege.ac.uk

We are looking forward to seeing your ideas!

Hair and Make-up creation by one of our students for The Royal Opera House Design Challenge chosen from a final design idea.

Here is an example of a Theatrical Hair and Make-up Artist's Final Design Idea. Designs help to communicate your ideas to other people. Where possible show your ideas from the front, and from any additional angles (remember that the back of the hair is equally important!).

Creating a Hair & Make-Up Design

Hair & make-up design for our 2019 National Theatre Production of Terra/Earth


A great hair and make-up creation can help the audience to instantly recognise a period in time, for example, a beehive and false eyelashes could represent the 1960s.

The hair and make-up designer should also consider accessories that would enhance the overall look and work closely with the costume designer.


Here is an example of a Hair and Make-up design created by one of our students for a performance set in the 1920s

Hair & make-up designers need to consider:

  • What is the period in which the piece is set? research to ensure the hair and make-up fits the time. This will impact on the overall hair and make-up design.

  • Where is the character ?(e.g. inside, outside, in the city, in a desert) Is it a formal or informal occasion? Do you need to extend the make-up further ? e.g adding false eyelashes or enhance the hairstyle? e.g include hair accessories consideration has to be taken into account, for example, if the character is wearing a hat this will affect your chosen hairstyle.

  • What time of year is it? This this will impact on the colours chosen, skin colour may vary depending on the seasons and hair tends to become drier in winter months.

  • What time of day, a character may have a more relaxed hairstyle and remove make-up on an evening-also consider the lighting. Make-up seen under brighter lighting is different to make-up that needs to be visible under darker low lights.

  • Lighting-certain colours do not work under theatre lights and some can be cancelled out so always aim to get a good understanding of the colour palette and atmosphere of the performance.

  • What is your performer's character ? e.g uniform, gender, status, wealth, occupation, age. These will also affect your design, your placement of shade and highlight, eyebrow shape, wig shape etc.

  • What is the genre of the piece?- Will the character/s be dancing. How do you ensure that the hairstyle and make-up does not move out of place?

  • Would your performer be comfortable and fit for purpose? Your design must not restrict a performer e.g you would not create a special effects piece that restricted a character's vison if they were needed to perform at height or dance.

  • When you work with performers you must always consider their skin tone and type and hair condition and type. This forms the basis of your design. Then you can explore products and techniques that the most appropriate. A performer who has a skin condition may need an alternative to cream based make-up. Some hair types will become damaged if straightened so a wig would be used as an alternative.

  • Audience-Is it a small scale theatre where the audience are close to the performers? Is it obvious that the performer is wearing a wig when it is supposed to look natural. Is it a large scale auditorium? How do you ensure your make-up can be seen?

  • Does your final design meet the needs of the director and brief? Your work should support the costume and enhance the overall look of the performance.

Remember: everything’s deliberate!

Good character design is a series of deliberate decisions. Everything you do contributes to the audience’s understanding of the characters in the production.

Hair & Make-up has the power to transform performers into a completely different character. To creatures from the deep, wicked witches or even to look 100 years old!

Speaking of which, you can give this a try - using a dark concealer follow your natural frown, laughter lines, crows feet (you may have to pull some funny faces to find these!) and blend these out a little to create an easy wizened look. Voila! You have already started the transformation.


Katie's Design Tips:

Try and use colour on your designs: paints, chalks, collage (snippets of colour cut from magazines) anything you have at home is fine. Even make-up itself is great to use on designs to add colour and texture!

Or if you prefer you could create digital designs using an app on your phone such as IBIS Paint.

...and remember designs don't just need to be on a white background you can be creative and link your designs to the theme of the play! Enjoy designing :)