eBoy

eBoy is a pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital.

Ecity Pixorama, 1998

Their complex illustrations have been made into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and displayed in gallery exhibitions.[1] They were founded on May 2, 1997. "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."[1] eBoy is based in Berlin and Los Angeles.

Their influences come from: "Pop culture... shopping, supermarkets, TV, toy commercials, LEGO, computer games, the news, magazines..."[2] Kai grew up with Nintendo to inspire him, the rest of the eBoys lived in East Germany where video games did not exist.[2] Their work makes intense use of popular culture and commercial icons, and their style is presented in three-dimensional isometric illustrations filled with robots, cars, guns and girls. Now, most of their designs are printed and not used solely for computer screens, allowing images to get more complex with details.[1] "If we don't work on other projects at the same time it takes about six to eight weeks to finish a very detailed cityscape, three eBoy's working on it, nearly full time. But, if we have to do it in our spare time, which happens often, it could take years to finish a picture since we can't spend so much time on it."[1] Their style has gained them a cult following among graphic designers worldwide,[1] as well as a long list of commercial clients. Another one of their projects are plastic Peecol toys with Kidrobot, and a line of wooden toys are to be produced under their own label.

eBoy has completed "Pixoramas" on cities like Tokyo, Paris, Rio, Berlin and London and are currently funding their newest cityscape based on San Francisco via Kickstarter. They have also worked with brands such as Coca-Cola, MTV, VH1, Adidas, Gola and Honda. They worked on creating the album cover for Groove Armada's 2007 studio album Soundboy Rock, as well as the Wombats' 2022 album Fix Yourself, Not the World.[3]