This helps scale the pixel art without making it blurry!
This helps scale the pixel art without making it blurry!
‘The Starry Night’ by Van Gogh re-imagined into pixel art by Joo Jaebum
Pixel art has its origins in early drawing and painting software and was popularized by computer game design through the ’80s and ’90s. It's created on graphics software that allows images to be edited at the individual pixel level.
‘The Channel at Gravelines, Evening’ by Seurat, uses dots of color whereas pixel art uses squares.
Pixel art can be considered an imitation of ancient art forms, such as mosaic, bead-work and embroidery. If you take a look at the pointillism, developed by Georges Seurat, the similarity with pixel art is apparent. In pointillism, the painter uses small dots of color to make up an image.
It’s not just in the games industry that pixel art is experiencing a resurgence, and many artists and design agencies are now employing the art form in their own stand-alone designs. EBoy are a pioneering graphic design group that specialise in pixel art for advertising and have been doing so since 1998. Their huge list of top name clients, including Nike, Paul Smith, Playstation, Kidrobot and many more, prove pixel art’s popularity and appeal as well as the power an image created with pixels can have on an audience. Kai Verschamer of eBoy explained to us that pixel art can never become outdated due to the fact it is so basic and so enjoyable to work with:
“We chose to work with the pixel because we wanted to be able to control the smallest part of the screen. It turned out that the limitations and the modular nature of pixels were big fun to make things with.”
eBoy are famous for creating highly detailed, pixelated cityscapes.