Cyberpunk Metro Ads
The future, as imagined in 1987.
The future, as imagined in 1987.
What initially began as a simple line drawing of an RJ-45 connector eventually led to this series of 59x45" metro posters.
I had been meaning to do something based on the visual characteristics of the Plato computer system that was popularized during the mid-1970s: something orange, black, lo-fi, and vector-based. The orange-tinged ethernet connector immediately brought up images of dimly flickering metro ads set in a cyberpunk universe 15 minutes into the future. This thing is about as anachronistic as you can get: Advertisements inspired by a computer system from the 1970s using display technology developed in the 1960s, pushing technology popularized in the 1990s, all set in the 2050s as imagined in the 1980s.
Curiously, these vector-based posters feature one of my first attempts at pixel dithering. Because these print-sized posters were designed to look like raster displays, finding ways to mimic scanlines in a way that would still look pleasing when viewed from afar [or zoomed out] was a challenge. Initial attempts at doing standard scanlines caused unpleasant moireing. To fix this, I made each "scanline" out of a dithered, 4 pixel tall row. This preserved the effect at distance while still preserving a pixelated look up close.
I had been meaning to do something based on the visual characteristics of the Plato computer system that was popularized during the mid-1970s: something orange, black, lo-fi, and vector-based. The orange-tinged ethernet connector immediately brought up images of dimly flickering metro ads set in a cyberpunk universe 15 minutes into the future. This thing is about as anachronistic as you can get: Advertisements inspired by a computer system from the 1970s using display technology developed in the 1960s, pushing technology popularized in the 1990s, all set in the 2050s as imagined in the 1980s.
Curiously, these vector-based posters feature one of my first attempts at pixel dithering. Because these print-sized posters were designed to look like raster displays, finding ways to mimic scanlines in a way that would still look pleasing when viewed from afar [or zoomed out] was a challenge. Initial attempts at doing standard scanlines caused unpleasant moireing. To fix this, I made each "scanline" out of a dithered, 4 pixel tall row. This preserved the effect at distance while still preserving a pixelated look up close.
“The future is unwritten. There are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about if you' re a science fiction novelist, but neither of them ever happens in the real world. What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children.” ― Bruce Sterling
