Character Design.

When a character is being designed, the construction does not just happen automatically; every feature has a reason behind it. Due to the fact each character is unique they need to be designed and constructed to be able to perform their own specific function.
Every aspect needs to be considered when designing a character from their appearance, their interaction with other characters, body language or the choice of dialogue, for example the choice of words and style of the language can tell us a lot about the character. Such as we would immediately notice if a character was confident by their loud voice or by non stop talking.  
In books, television programs or films there is always at least one protagonist, who is the main character and does not necessarily need to be the ‘good guy’.
 This protagonist allows the reader/viewer to have a connection and so ‘a way in’ to the story and is key to most stories as without the main character, it becomes harder to identify and relate to significant events. 
There is also often an Antagonist, who is the cause of the conflicts and without this character the protagonist would have little problems and so would lead an average life with not a lot happening. A stereotype can also be introduced to communicate a lot of information about a character very efficiently. 

 One example of how a character has been specifically designed in order to communicate its functions is the main protagonist in ‘Cars’ a Disney Pixar film. The character is an animated anthropomorphic racing car, in which the design of the car was influenced by a high powered sports car, possibly a Mazda Miata or a Dodge Viper in order to communicate its speed and also its authenticity. The colour red is also a typical racing colour and it is also very bright which will attract the audience of this film being children. The racing car is called lightening McQueen, with ‘lightening’ communicating the cars high speed and McQueen was named after the late animator Glen McQueen and also from the influence of Steve McQueen a racing enthusiast where the car also shares some of his traits.

Lightening McQueen.