Contrary to what you may think, this word art portrait of Arsenal and England footballer, Bukayo Saka was not created using a displacement map in Adobe Photoshop.

This is the result of hours of painstaking work in Adobe Illustrator, following the contours of Bukayo's face, creating shapes and using the envelope warp, transform and puppet warp tools to create a striking black and white visual of the man Arsenal fans call "Starboy".

The images above should give you an idea of the time and effort that it took to create the base for the portrait. Once this was finished, I was able to move the template (right) into Adobe Photoshop and begin editing.

These variations are based exclusively on the three Arsenal FC shirts from the 2023/24 season. If you look very closely, you'll be able to see a map of North London in the background which contains the Emirates Stadium, which has been Arsenal's home since 2007.

To add some authenticity I tried to include elements that had both links to both player and club. It allowed me to create spin-offs and off shoots from the original black and white portrait and create some social-sized images that have vibrancy.