Elsa vs. Jack Frost

It amazes me how time and time again, certain design elements carry through to different characters from different creators. As I was watching the new trailer for Frozen, I was struck by this as Elsa first came on screen. The similarities between her design and the design for Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians are very interesting. They reveal just how much we need the design to tell the story for us as much as the words tell the story. Every good character design has this storytelling quality, and Elsa and Jack are no exception. For them both, major parts of their designs speak to their powers with snow and ice. This is only the surface of these characters and there is much more to them than their powers, but at the beginning this is most of what we need to know and their design communicates that.


For a start, their color scheme is what we would expect. It is blue and white primarily, which is what our minds equate with winter. It may seem so obvious that its silly, but color is important if only a tad trite in this case. As you can see below, Elsa has a regal light robins egg blue dress while Jack is sporting a darker blue color. Also apparent is the frost on Jack's sweatshirt, and the snowflakes on Elsa's cape. These are more obvious hints towards their wintery gifts, but not overly apparent at first glance. Also present is their light, bordering on white hair. For Elsa it leans more towards blond, but it is a very bright blond. The similarities continue in the way that their icy powers are communicated through spirals of snow and ice in a very stylized manner. All in all, they share a lot in common, and yet these are two very different characters. You can't change the way that our brains perceive certain colors and designs, and both of these creators are obviously aware of this and played off of it. Some may say that one copied the other, but I do not think this is the case here, I just found the similarities interesting enough to note.

 The sources for these pictures can be found here: First Frozen Poster Second Frozen Poster Jack Frost Picture