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{{trope}}
This is a concept that transcends almost all forms of media, and even has a related topic even in non-visual forms like radio or literature. When working with a very visual format you do not want people to confuse your characters between each other. You may be capable of distinguishing between your friends but in a story if the random [[Red Shirt]] looks very similar to [[The Hero]] it can confuse the audience as to why the hero suddenly [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him|died with little fanfare.]] It might seem like a small thing but ''you do not'' want to confuse your audience like that.
 
So in order to make sure the main characters are identifiable you should go out of your way to ensure a distinctive appearance is given for everyone. As a rule of thumb, even though it may seem bad at first, even before you know the person's name other people should know what you're talking about when you talk about "That guy with the [[Nice Hat]]" or "His [[Badass Longcoat]] was flowing in the [[Dramatic Wind]]." If they are that easy to identify from the start then it makes their presence in the story that much easier to follow.
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And this can go in almost any number of directions.
* You have a [[Five-Man Band]], a group who is defined by their roles and quite often their physical size and appearance. You want these characters to be memorable, so you make them as different from each other in appearance as possible. [[The Hero]] is muscular, [[The Lancer]] is slender, [[The Big Guy]] is really huge, [[The Smart Guy]] is really small and oversized glasses, [[The Chick]] has [[Curves in All Thethe Right Places|all the right curves]], etc.
* Have it all be [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]. [[Power Rangers]] has survived on this for years, the Red Ranger is the leader. The Pink Ranger or Yellow Ranger is the chick. Not bad for a team costume that covers their face, huh?
* Make it a [[Five-Token Band]], even if all you know about the guy is that he's "The Mexican one" that's a lot better then "the other white guy."
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* [[Fullmetal Alchemist|Edward Elric's]] [[Bring My Red Jacket|bright red coat]]. Most of the other State Alchemists wear the same uniform but are visually distinct enough that you can tell them apart, in part due to varying body types.
** Only in the original anime, though. While he does wear it in the manga and Brotherhood, its appearances become much less frequent as the story goes on.
* Isumi of ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler (Manga)|Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' doesn't wear the standard girl's uniform at their school. This is even lampshaded when Nagi invites her to come see the new kitten: she says she needs to go home first and change out of her school uniform and Nagi responds that she's wearing a kimono already. The Hakuou girl's uniform is already similar to a kimono, but Isumi says it's too breezy.
* Oda, the creator of ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'', goes out of his way to make sure every non-mook has an appearance distinct from everyone else (except for a pair of [[Single-Minded Twins]]).
* ''[[Sailor Moon (Manga)|Sailor Moon]]'' has the title character wearing her trademark [[Odango Hair]] with long [[Girlish Pigtails|twintails]], making her very distinct and recognizable throughout the whole Magical Girl genre.
 
 
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* ''[[Star Wars]]'': Is there anyone who can't [[media:tpm_teaser.jpg|recognize Darth Vader by his shadow?]]
** The lightsaber colors were meant to be easily distinctive between Jedi and Sith. And in a literal vein, Luke's new lightsaber in ''Return of the Jedi'' was supposed to be blue, but with most of the Sarlacc pit battle being outside against the blue sky they changed it to green to stand out.
*** Also, apparently the reason [[Samuel L. Jackson]] wanted a purple lightsaber was so he could pick himself out in crowd shots.
* During production of ''[[The Incredibles]]'', an animator did outlines of each of the Parr's heads, to make sure each of them was distinct from the other. Brad Bird liked the sketch so much he had it made into a T-shirt.
** Yep. Not only color, but also silhouette, pose, and light-to-dark ratio/location.
* This was talked about on the DVD of ''[[Spider -Man]] 2'', where they said it was really fun to create Doctor Octopus because all you needed was his silhouette and you can tell it is him.
* In ''[[Rush Hour]] 2'' the fight in the massage parlor had all of the [[Mook|mooks]] wearing blue robes with [[Jackie Chan]] wearing a purple robe and, well, Chris Tucker stands out with little trouble, but they still had him do the fight shirtless.
* In an aversion, the Transformers films have been criticized because the robot characters look too much alike, especially in fast-paced fight scenes. YMMV.
* In ''The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes'', Balding is a good head shorter and a good foot rounder than Murdoch. This makes a major plot point [[Fridge Logic|pretty perplexing.]]
* This was an issue in designing the ''Reliant'' for ''[[Star Trek II: theThe Wrath of Khan (Film)|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]''. Since the ''Reliant'' is also a Federation starship, it had to look like it came from the same fleet as the ''Enterprise''. At the same time, however, the ''Reliant'' is hijacked by the villains and is their ship for most of the movie, so there was a concern that audiences would become confused if the "good ship" and the "bad ship" looked too much alike.
 
 
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** You can also look at the ethnicity and general size of the characters. J.D. is very skinny and dark hair, Turk is black, Carla is Dominican, Dr. Cox has curly hair and is muscular, Elliot has [[Hair of Gold]], Dr. Kelso is short and heavy set, and The Janitor is tall and looming.
** In the episode where J.D., Turk and Carla all got scooters, they matched the colour-coding of their scrubs, in what might have been a mild [[Lampshade Hanging]].
* ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' did an iconic color coding of their uniforms, along with different insignias and patches that indicate which department they are with. TOS had Operations wear gold (actually a lime green, like Kirk's wraparound tunic, but the lighting on the standard uniform fabric made them look gold), Engineering and Security [[Red Shirt|wore red]] and Science and Medical wore blue (McCoy even had a short sleeve tunic to make it clear he was a doctor). Starting in TNG, the rank was designated by pips on their collar and the department colors changed: Operations wore Red, Engineering and Security wore Gold and Medical and Science wore blue as always (Dr. Crusher often had a blue lab coat).
** When ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV)|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' came out they introduced new uniforms to have colored shoulders rather than colored torso's, originally made to differentiate Starship crews from Starbase crews. In ''[[Star Trek Generations (Film)|Star Trek Generations]]'' the colored shoulders uniform was given to the command officers on the Enterprise, making it the only time both variations were worn by the same crew.
** They also introduced a special captain's uniform to make them different from other operations staff. Kirk had the green wraparound tunic (acknowledged with ''Enterprise's'' [[Mirror Universe]] episode). Picard had a two layer outfit with a velvet jacket over a gray shirt. ''[[Star Trek: First Contact (Film)|Star Trek First Contact]]'' introduced the Starfleet uniform change with a black and gray jumpsuit with color coded turtleneck undershirts, but Picard spent most of the film wearing a red shirt under a vest. That same outfit was later worn by Sisko in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV)|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]].''
** Admiral Uniforms also tended to be different, often with more insignias and a front zipper. ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise (TV)|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' surprised fans by having the Admiral uniforms with a necktie.
* ''[[Green Wing]]'' does something very similar to Scrubs, at least to a certain extent, which obviously makes sense when they're both set in hospitals. Oddly, while all three wear green scrubs in the operating theatre, Mac will continue to wear his while Caroline and Guy change back into their white lab coats.
 
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Gears of War]]'' designed [[The Hero]] Marcus as having the default armor style for the game, with everything else being derived from his design. For Dominic they gave him a shoulder light as well as a knife on his chest to give him a different silhouette. Cole has bare arms and Baird has blonde hair with blue armor.
* Valve deliberately invoked this when designing the characters in ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]''. Every class has a [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_J0eGLzEI-8A/STxVcIj2jjI/AAAAAAAAADw/wr8UGwQmva0/s320/TF2ManicanBreakdown.jpg very distinct shape] which helps a lot to identify what's coming after you. This also use to make it easy to spot snipers by looking for the hat, until just about everyone gained customized hats that can throw this off.
* Also by Valve, the characters in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' all have distinctive silhouettes as well as the various special infected.
* ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'' gives {{spoiler|geth party member}} Legion a massive hole through his chest, visible from almost all angles, so the player can distinguish him from his hostile cousins at a glance and avoid friendly fire incidents.
** Legion also has {{spoiler|a chunk of Shepard's N7 armor recovered from the wreckage of the original ''Normandy''}} welded to his chest.
* Despite being very much a [[Improbably-Female Cast]], it's possible to tell nearly every member of the ''[[Touhou]]'' cast apart by their silhouette, as demonstrated in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3C-VevI36s this video].
* Every single Robot Master in the [[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Mega Man]] series is designed with a distinct body, which helps a lot when you consider how they [[Only Six Faces|tend to have similar faces]]. Many can also be told apart by their silhouettes (much like the ''[[Touhou]]'' example above), if ''9'' and ''10'''s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPScPaInWOI promo] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeIRUVPROOU videos] are any indication.
 
 
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* [[Transformers]] does this most especially when the toy designs were actually for the franchise and not repackaged from other toy lines. There are still some things you don't mess around with, such as Optimus Prime's chest windows. In fact, since most of the other Autobots have the front grill of the car become their chest, having the front windows become his chest is what makes him visually unique and thereby the leader. With ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', the design is so unique that all you need is their outline and you can see the Autobot line-up.
** It should be noted that the "law" of Prime design has been averted on three occasions: once, in Armada, where he was a long nosed cab and instead his grill formed his chest, and then later in his Alternators and Alternity incarnations, in which he was portrayed as having a chest formed from the front end of a truck and car, respectively.
* ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' come in all shapes and sizes. None of the main crew have the same color scheme, same wing design, or even the same face. In fact, seeing that Angela had Goliath's coloring but Demona's appearance tipped Elisa off that she was Goliath's daughter.
* The original character design for ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' required the family to each have distinctive silhouettes (only Maggie and Lisa have the same hair). Most other characters could probably be recognised by their silhouette too.
** It's actually one of creator Matt Groening's rules that the character design department MUST make all new characters instantly recognizable by silhouette, but not draw attention from the main family, or it gets rejected.
** This can also be seen in Futurama where Matt Groening described Fry's "hair horns" as being particularly useful in maintaining a unique silhouette.
* The ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' creators used to work on ''[[The Simpsons]],'' so they designed the major characters based on the same concept. The title characters are the most obvious examples, especially Phineas, who has a triangular head.
* Adult Swim had a between-shows promo that mentioned this, with silhouettes of the cast of ''[[Futurama]]'' clearly identifiable.
* Even if Henry and June from ''[[Ka Blam!]]!'' wore the same outfit, had the same eyes, and sported the same hair, there's a way to tell them apart. Henry has freckles, and June has some baby fat she didn't burn off yet.
 
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