Featured Maker: eBoy

Computers & Mobile Craft & Design
Featured Maker: eBoy
maker_faire_2007.jpg

Iconic pixel-art collective eBoy probably needs no introduction. Around here, they’re best known for the splendiferously intricate poster they made to promote Maker Faire Bay Area 2007, shown above. TBH, their catalog leaves me slightly speechless. Their posters–which include a “cities” series featuring LA, NYC, Toyko, London, Berlin, Cologne, Venice, and the Baltimore docks, as well as “event” posters including a promotional for Amnesty International, the giant-robots-themed SuperBronco print created for their first solo UK gallery show, and FooBar, which is a mash-up of iconic Web 2.0 brands in a kind of “virtual city”–all induce the same jaw-dropping wonderland-of-details type effect. It feels like I could spend hours exploring any one of them, and there are so many. So many! Besides the posters, they also offer a book which includes eight of their most popular designs reproduced on a smaller scale in case, like me, you just don’t have enough space on your walls for all the awesome they want to put there.


LA.jpg

LA. 33.1 × 46.8 inch (841 × 1189 mm) CMYK offset print.


buildingsposter_eboy.jpg

Buildings. 33.1 × 46.8 inch (841 × 1189 mm) CMYK offset print.


peecol.jpg

Peecol. 33.1 × 46.8 inch (841 × 1189 mm) CMYK offset print.


3boys.png

eBoy was founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital. They’re based in Berlin but have collaborators in New York and Vacouver.

We started working with pixels because we loved the idea of making pictures only for the screen. It’s the best way to get really sharp and clean looking results. Also, handling pixels is fun and you are forced to simplify and abstract things, which is a big advantage of this technique.

In case you’re not already broke, they also make toys. And bags. Seriously, guys: Enough already!

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

View more articles by Sean Michael Ragan

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK