Pixel art began in the early 1970s, when researchers first built computer paint systems. It spread through arcade games in the late 1970s and home consoles and computers in the 1980s, where tight memory limits forced artists to design pixel by pixel. When 3D graphics took over mainstream games in the 1990s, the demoscene and later online communities kept it alive, and indie games in the 2010s turned it into a style people choose on purpose. The term “pixel art” itself was published in 1982.
Pixel art timeline at a glance #
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1972 | Richard Shoup’s SuperPaint at Xerox PARC, an early pixel painting system |
| 1978 | Space Invaders arrives in arcades |
| 1980 | Pac-Man |
| 1981 | IBM’s CGA graphics card: 4 colors at 320 x 200 |
| 1982 | The term “pixel art” appears in print. The Commodore 64 launches |
| 1983 | Nintendo’s Famicom launches in Japan (NES in North America from 1985) |
| 1984 | The Macintosh ships with MacPaint and Susan Kare’s icons |
| 1989 | The Game Boy: four shades on a 160 x 144 screen |
| 1998 | The Game Boy Camera and the Game Boy Color |
| 1990s to 2000s | Demoscene and online communities carry the craft |
| 2015 to 2016 | Undertale and Stardew Valley reach huge audiences |
Dates from Wikipedia’s articles on each system and on pixel art.
When did pixel art start? #
Pixels are as old as raster displays, but deliberate pixel artwork needed a way to paint them. Wikipedia points to Richard Shoup’s SuperPaint system at Xerox PARC in 1972 as an early example.
The name came a decade later. Wikipedia credits Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox PARC with publishing the term “pixel art” in 1982. By then, millions of people had already seen it in arcades without having a name for it.
How did arcade games shape pixel art? #
Arcade hardware of the late 1970s and early 1980s had very little memory, so characters were small grids of a few colors. Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) are the famous examples. Designers had to make a monster, a ghost or a spaceship readable in a handful of pixels, and that discipline, with strong silhouettes, few colors and exaggerated shapes, is still the core of pixel art.
What did home computers and consoles add? #
In the 1980s, pixel art moved into homes, and each machine’s hardware gave it a distinct look:
- IBM PC with CGA (1981): 4 colors at 320 x 200 from fixed palettes, hence all the cyan and magenta.
- Commodore 64 (1982): a 16-color palette at 320 x 200, or 160 x 200 in multicolor mode with wider pixels.
- ZX Spectrum: 15 colors, but only two per 8 x 8 block, which caused “attribute clash.”
- NES (1983 in Japan): tile-based graphics, three colors per sprite and up to 25 on screen. We explain those rules in how many colors the NES could display.
- Game Boy (1989): four shades of gray-green on a 160 x 144 LCD.
These limits came from memory, not taste. Why old games had so few colors walks through the math. Artists responded with techniques that are still taught today: dithering to fake extra shades, careful color ramps, dark outlines, and reusable tiles.
Who designed the first Macintosh icons? #
Susan Kare joined Apple in January 1983 and designed the original Macintosh’s icons and fonts. According to Wikipedia, she worked on 32 x 32 pixel grids to create the Happy Mac, the trash can, the bomb and the paintbrush, as well as the Chicago, Geneva and Monaco fonts. Wikipedia describes her as an early pioneer of pixel art.
The Mac also changed how pixel art was made. MacPaint, written by Bill Atkinson and released with the Macintosh on January 24, 1984, had a zoom mode called FatBits that showed each pixel as a clickable rectangle. That’s the same basic idea as every pixel editor since: zoom in until each pixel is a square you can click.
What happened to pixel art in the 1990s? #
Two things happened at once. 16-bit consoles and PCs with bigger palettes let pixel art reach its most detailed commercial form. Then, as 3D graphics took over mainstream games in the second half of the decade, hand-drawn pixel art started to look old-fashioned.
It survived in several places:
- Handhelds. The Game Boy line kept pixel art in millions of pockets. In 1998 Nintendo released the Game Boy Camera, which took 128 x 112 pixel photos in four dithered shades and printed them on thermal paper. It was one of the first consumer photo-to-pixel-art devices.
- The demoscene. Wikipedia notes that demoscene communities in the 1990s established pixel art as an art form in its own right, separate from games.
- Emulation. Emulators let people replay old games on modern screens, which also created demand for pixel-art scaling algorithms. Eric Johnston’s EPX, written at LucasArts around 1992 while porting SCUMM engine games, was an early one.
How did the internet keep pixel art alive? #
In the 2000s, online communities such as the Pixelation forum and Pixel Joint gave pixel artists places to share work, critique each other and write down techniques. Wikipedia credits them with formalizing many of the standards artists use. Pixel art was also everywhere on the early web, in icons, avatars and animated GIFs, because the GIF format’s 256-color limit suited it.
Why did pixel art come back? #
In the 2010s, independent game developers adopted pixel art on purpose. It suited small teams, it aged well, and it carried nostalgia for players who grew up with 8-bit and 16-bit games. Wikipedia names Undertale (2015) and Stardew Valley (2016) among the indie hits of that period.
The tools caught up too. Dedicated pixel editors like Aseprite (on Steam since February 2016), and free, open-source ones like Piskel and Pixelorama, made the craft accessible. Palette libraries such as Lospec’s collected thousands of community palettes. “Fantasy consoles” like PICO-8 went further, deliberately limiting creators to a 128 x 128 screen and a fixed 16-color palette.
What does pixel art look like today? #
Pixel art is now a style rather than a constraint. It’s used for indie games, app icons, NFT-era profile pictures, stickers, emotes, animated GIFs and prints. Artists work freely with modern palettes, or recreate the exact limits of a specific console for authenticity. For a definition and a guide to the core techniques, start with what pixel art is.
Turning photos into pixel art has come a long way since the Game Boy Camera. A phone can now do the same thing with far more choice. Pixelize, for example, converts photos using 25 palettes, including the Game Boy, NES, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, CGA and PICO-8, with five dithering methods, all processed on the phone.
Frequently asked questions #
When was pixel art invented? #
Deliberate pixel artwork dates to the early 1970s, with systems like Richard Shoup’s SuperPaint at Xerox PARC in 1972. It became widely seen through arcade games from the late 1970s.
Who coined the term “pixel art”? #
Wikipedia credits Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox PARC, who published the term in 1982.
Who is the most influential early pixel artist? #
Susan Kare is often cited. Her 32 x 32 pixel icons and bitmap fonts for the original 1984 Macintosh are still widely recognized, and Wikipedia calls her an early pioneer of pixel art.
Why is pixel art popular again? #
It’s efficient for small game teams, reads clearly at small sizes, and carries nostalgia. Indie hits of the 2010s, including Undertale and Stardew Valley, showed it could support modern, commercially successful games.