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OPSM LOVES AUSTRALIAN FACES

THE JOURNEY

Out of our 25 million people a quarter were born overseas and millions of us report to having more than 3 ancestries**.

The makeup of our society doesn’t fit a conventional mould, so why would our faces? No-one really questioned the traditional round, oval, square or heart face types – but we agree their definitions are broad.

Around 1/3 of Australians said they were unsure of their face shape*, so we set out to determine the real face shapes of modern Australia – and who better to partner with than street style blogger, Yvan Rodic, the Face Hunter himself.

WE FACE HUNTED

From Sydney to Broome; Darwin to Melbourne, and enlisted a fleet of photographers to capture 1000 diverse faces. Working with a world leading facial recognition scientist, Dr Kendra Schmid, we individually analysed each image, defining nine groups – five new, in addition to the four traditional.

Find your face shape

THE RESEARCH

In Kendra’s research a thousand faces were analysed for symmetry and proportion using a formula based on 29 points on the face and 14 measurements between those points. These results were then categorised through “cluster analysis” to reveal five new face shapes in addition to the four traditional categories.

We were most surprised by the diversity in the face shapes found, we didn’t expect to find nine by adding five new face shapes to the existing four.

Rarer types such as Teardrop, Heptagon and Oblong, although reflecting a relatively small percentage of Australians, all have very distinct features that set them apart from more common groups.

Find out more on face shapes

  1. * OPSM Question Your Vision Report, 2013. Survey conducted by Galaxy Research with a sample of 1269 Australians
  2. **Source: ABS, Reflecting A Nation: Stories from the 2011 Census 2012-13 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/2071.0main+features902012-2013