The INKFLESH mark I designed starts with an empty profile avatar. A deliberately plain shape for an identity full of strange characters.
The characters needed room to change. The identity also had to work on a woven label or an app icon, where a detailed illustrated face has very little space to do its job.
I kept the silhouette and palette constant, then let the artwork change around them. The mark can hold an illustration, appear as a solid stamp, or sit on its own at a small size. Each version still has the same shape underneath.
That was the useful constraint: decide what someone should recognise when the most expressive part of the design disappears.
If your identity depends on a detailed illustration, try its smallest application before approving the whole world around it.