So what is Pixel Art? Did you know the applications of Pixel Art in design? Let's find out with Kent Wynn through the following article!
What is Pixel Art?
Pixel Art is an art form that feels nostalgic and creates a distinctive character in design publications, especially extremely popular in today's game design.
To understand what Pixel Art is, we need to understand through the two concepts of Pixel and Art.
Pixel
Pixel stands for picture element, which is a physical point on an image, measuring about 0.26×0.35 mm.
Pixel is the most basic unit for creating digital images, created from cameras, camcorders, or specialized software such as photoshop.
In Photoshop, pixels are created as small rectangles with color or no color. Each pixel on the display screen will be assigned a color by the computer in a group of 4 color values: red, green, blue, and gray.
The pixels are arranged next to each other with the same or different color intensities, creating an image that can be seen by the human eye. The sharper the photo, the more pixels it contains.
Art
Pixel Art is often known through design publications in the digital age. But what most people don't know, the basis of today's Pixel Art design publications is rooted in art paintings made in the centuries BC, called paintings.
Mosaic panels were first found in Mesopotamia and were increasingly popular and popular with the ancient Greeks from the 4th century BC.
Along with the development of art over time, Pixel Art artworks are increasingly diversified with different materials, richer and more diverse forms: Textures created on tapestries, wood carvings decorations, rock paintings, pegboard – a type of children's toy that uses small colored plastic pieces to form pictures, etc.
Pixel Art
Today, with the development of technology in the digital age, Pixel Art has become the design inspiration of many designers, creating stories and images with square blocks, blowing a new wind in the world. creative arts world.
Pixel Art is a form of digital art, created through the use of software, in which images are edited at the pixel level, inspired by 8-bit graphics. In most of the publications designed Pixel Art, palettes example being used as an extremely limited size, with some only use two colors.
Pixel Art is largely derived from classic video games, especially classic arcade games like Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) and 8-bit consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System (1983) and Sega Master System (1985).
Pixel Art brings fun, modernity with a touch of nostalgia, making a difference to design publications when the world is increasingly changing to follow the trend of smooth graphics upgrades.
Pixel Art design publications can be created from a lot of different software: from Paintms to Photoshop, or even drawing with Excel, etc. not far from the principle of working with pixels – billions of pixels. meticulous and detailed.
If you want to start and learn the art of Pixel Art, Photoshop will be a reasonable initial choice. A small note is to consider the configuration of your personal computer and your needs to be able to choose a reasonable version of Photoshop software!
Applications of Pixel Art in design
1. In game design
As can be easily seen, Pixel Art is extremely popular in game design on older computers and consoles – video game consoles (a computer device that emits a video or visual signal to show a video game that one or more people can play).
With the development of modern technology, Pixel Art is increasingly improved, showing better details than before.
2. In advertising
Pixel Art is also used in creative advertising. A few typical products are known as advertising by Bell Canada (commonly known as Bell ) – a Canadian telecommunications company.
Or, Eboy (“Godfathers of Pixel”) – pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermeer, Steffen Sauerteig, and Svend Smital inspired by isometric pixel graphics to make a difference for advertising products, was posted in magazines like Wired, Popular Science, and Fortune 500.
3. Icon design in operating systems
With a limited number of colors and resolutions, it seemed like a challenge for Pixel Art, but the creators took advantage of that, making it simpler to convey complex ideas. and efficient.
Icons for operating systems (e.g. Microsoft Windows) with limited graphical capabilities or shortcut icons, web page icons, tab icons, URL icons, or bookmarks icons are also an application.
4. 3D Graphic Design
As technology advances, computers can now process up to millions of colors at once, but Pixel Art is still considered an endless source of inspiration for the 3D graphics industry.
Or to this day, the virtual worlds of social networks such as Citypixel and Habbo, as well as among handheld devices such as the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PSP, PS Vita and mobile phones, and in modern indie games such as Hotline Miami and FTL: Faster Than Light have been applying this art.
In the end
This article introduced the concept of Pixel Art and some applications of Pixel Art in design.
Hopefully, after the above article, Kent Wynn has helped you understand more or less about Pixel Art. If you are interested in this style but know where to start or have not mastered the tools to create such impressive products, you can refer to the course or books.