Cloud was primarily designed by Tetsuya Nomura, with some input from Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshinori Kitase and Kazushige Nojima. He was one of the first two characters designed for Final Fantasy VII, with the other one being Sephiroth. At first, his hair was supposed to be black and slicked back, but this was later changed to the blonde spiky look, since the former look didn't look too heroic.
Kitase and Nojima were primarily tasked with developing the background for Cloud, as well as his relationship with Sephiroth. He was originally supposed to act like an alter ego for Sephiroth, with him believing he wasn't the real Cloud, but this was changed in the final product. His sword, the Buster Sword, was a lot smaller than its final form, but its size kept growing as Nomura redesigned Cloud over and over.
