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Challenge: Pixel perfect design

developer.apple.com

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Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#2

Post by cube00 »

I noticed the images looked a little blurred to me for pixel art. Digging further into it, they're oversized high resolution JPEG images scaled down by the browser rather then correctly sized PNGs.

Putting quality aside and thinking about the poor internet pipes; each image is around 100kb in size and had it been a two bit black and white PNG would have been around 12kb.

I know, I know, it's a probably an off the shelf CMS system but still, it's Apple, if anyone can afford to care about the little things like this shouldn't it be them?

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#3

Post by toxik »

cube00 wrote: post #2

I noticed the images looked a little blurred to me for pixel art. Digging further into it, they're oversized high resolution JPEG images scaled down by the browser rather then correctly sized PNGs. Putting quality aside and thinking about the poor internet pipes; each image is around 100kb in size and had it been a two bit black and white PNG would have been around 12kb. I know, I know, it's a probably an off the she…

They look great here. Safari on iOS.

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#4

Post by flowerbeater »

Pixel art is a fun retro hobby, but as the article acknowledges, "we create work for high-resolution HDR screens." Icons, logos, and illustrations in general should be vector-first, so they will show up cleanly on HiDPI and in the future, 4X or 8X DPI interfaces. Too many icons and logos (even the Y on the top left here in HN) look blurry on a simple 4K monitor with 200% scaling (which is not uncommon now).

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#6

Post by toxik »

flowerbeater wrote: post #4

Pixel art is a fun retro hobby, but as the article acknowledges, "we create work for high-resolution HDR screens." Icons, logos, and illustrations in general should be vector-first, so they will show up cleanly on HiDPI and in the future, 4X or 8X DPI interfaces. Too many icons and logos (even the Y on the top left here in HN) look blurry on a simple 4K monitor with 200% scaling (which is not uncommon now).

True, and pixel art was originally designed for cathode ray tubes. This leads to a funny effect where modern pixel art designers perhaps misunderstand the intended look of actual oldskool pixel art and emulate it anyway. The same is true of old fonts.

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#7

Post by saberience »

cube00 wrote: post #2

I noticed the images looked a little blurred to me for pixel art. Digging further into it, they're oversized high resolution JPEG images scaled down by the browser rather then correctly sized PNGs. Putting quality aside and thinking about the poor internet pipes; each image is around 100kb in size and had it been a two bit black and white PNG would have been around 12kb. I know, I know, it's a probably an off the she…

They looked perfect to me, using an Macbook Air M1 and Chrome.

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#8

Post by im_down_w_otp »

This is an interesting challenge. I fire up my Macintosh SE/30 regularly to journal and organize my thoughts using Microsoft Word 5.1

Every time I do it I'm impressed again and again what was possible with a 512x342 black & white screen and a 16 MHz 68030 attached to 8 MB of RAM (which is "overkill" for my use). It's incredible the collective and integrated creativity that was motivated by the constraints of the medium.

Seeing Apple propose this challenge makes me wonder if there's some kind of low-power, low-res product they're wanting to release where these kinds of design constraints are relevant again.

Re: Challenge: Pixel perfect design

#9

Post by throw457 »

cube00 wrote: post #2

I noticed the images looked a little blurred to me for pixel art. Digging further into it, they're oversized high resolution JPEG images scaled down by the browser rather then correctly sized PNGs. Putting quality aside and thinking about the poor internet pipes; each image is around 100kb in size and had it been a two bit black and white PNG would have been around 12kb. I know, I know, it's a probably an off the she…

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