I'm not an artist at all, but thinking of my favorite character designs through games and webcomics, the designs I like the best typically have a few things in common.
The first like everyone has already said is simplicity and silhouette - probably no point in going further.
The second is a bit of flair attached to the character and emblematic of the characters personality. Spyro had a upwards horns unique among the dragons you saw, Crash had fingerless gloves and a sharp nose, Max from Paranatural wears a baseball cap in a very 90s way and so on and so forth. Sir Carrot has carrot shaped hair. Tidus had one pant leg longer than the other because he was a tool. Basically something that I as a reader can look at and say "oh, they are this person and do that".
It also feeds into narrative use in the story, because you can use that bit of flair as a shorthand for a person when you need to express something simply and quickly to me or if you want to imply something in story.
Need to in-story bring a character up to speed on something, but you don't want to use a smash cut or six pages of dialog? Cut it down and express it simply - a stick person with a ballcap gets punched by a stick person with spikey hair, and a stick person with sunglasses breaks it up. Max and Isaac got in a fight, Mr. Spender broke it up. You can make it more complex by throwing in a little bit of a narration, but the big elements of the story come across in a straightforward way and you didn't have to say "refer to pages 112 to 123" or rewrite it all to get it across.
Want to imply something clearly and still maintain drama in the story - show the characters coming across a tip of carrot shaped hair. We now know something bad happened/is happening to Sir Carrot so we get a sense of urgency to find and help him. Want to imply shit got real in the past and stayed real - show me Spyro with a broken horn.
Basically little symbols that are attached to the characters but separate from them that can be used to help get stuff across to the reader without dedicating pages of fully drawn characters.
The first like everyone has already said is simplicity and silhouette - probably no point in going further.
The second is a bit of flair attached to the character and emblematic of the characters personality. Spyro had a upwards horns unique among the dragons you saw, Crash had fingerless gloves and a sharp nose, Max from Paranatural wears a baseball cap in a very 90s way and so on and so forth. Sir Carrot has carrot shaped hair. Tidus had one pant leg longer than the other because he was a tool. Basically something that I as a reader can look at and say "oh, they are this person and do that".
It also feeds into narrative use in the story, because you can use that bit of flair as a shorthand for a person when you need to express something simply and quickly to me or if you want to imply something in story.
Need to in-story bring a character up to speed on something, but you don't want to use a smash cut or six pages of dialog? Cut it down and express it simply - a stick person with a ballcap gets punched by a stick person with spikey hair, and a stick person with sunglasses breaks it up. Max and Isaac got in a fight, Mr. Spender broke it up. You can make it more complex by throwing in a little bit of a narration, but the big elements of the story come across in a straightforward way and you didn't have to say "refer to pages 112 to 123" or rewrite it all to get it across.
Want to imply something clearly and still maintain drama in the story - show the characters coming across a tip of carrot shaped hair. We now know something bad happened/is happening to Sir Carrot so we get a sense of urgency to find and help him. Want to imply shit got real in the past and stayed real - show me Spyro with a broken horn.
Basically little symbols that are attached to the characters but separate from them that can be used to help get stuff across to the reader without dedicating pages of fully drawn characters.
