For nearly two decades, the pixel-world building collective known as eBoy has been rendering cities in their unmistakable 8-bit style. After transforming New York (pictured above), Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, and London into what the graphics trio calls Pixoramas, they are hoping to tackle San Francisco next
“A San Francisco Pixorama pixel poster has been on our to-do list for years,” wrote eBoy on the Kickstarter page for the project. “San Francisco, as a historic city and as the most influential hub of technology in the world, has to be part of our Pixorama series. Our pixel posters can take a lot of time though – it’s easy to spend 1000+ hours on one city. And we want to do it right.”
ANIMAL reached out to eBoy about the ambitious undertaking.
Out of all the cities you’ve pixelated, which was the hardest and why?
That’s difficult to say … in general all cities start out hard and become easier to work on with every new detail added. Technically speaking a hilly landscape like San Francisco can be a bit more of a challenge.
What can a city do to make your job easier?
Have citizens and visitors take tons of photos! We do a lot of image searching on Google and Flickr. Google Streetview and maps can be very helpful as well. And of course, support with the financing. 😉
Will you be including weed dispensaries?
Yes we should! It’s not on our list yet, we’ll have to look into it. This kind of stuff is what the research phase will bring up.
What challenges will a city like San Francisco present?
The contrast between rich and poor, sun and fog, history and future, beauty and ugliness, water and hills. It’s a city of mind boggling opposites. It will be big fun!
