EBoy

Sauerteig and Smital grew up within blocks of each other in East Berlin and met as teenagers.^[1] Neither had access to video games or computers; they learned about Western culture from John Peel's radio programs and punk shows staged in churches.^[1] Sauerteig took part in the Leipzig demonstrations that preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall, and later studied video arts at the Berlin Institute of Design.^[1] Smital studied typography and magazine design at the same school.^[1]

Vermehr was born in Germany and raised in Venezuela and Guatemala, where his father worked in pharmaceuticals.^[1] He grew up with Apple II computers but felt culturally isolated, and moved to Berlin after finishing school.^[1] He studied design in Cologne and later joined MetaDesign, where he met Sauerteig, then a student intern, in 1994.^[1] They began publishing pixel art on a website after Sauerteig graduated in 1996, and brought Smital in soon after to form eBoy.^[1] Earlier work had been distributed on floppy disks passed among friends.^[5]

The studio's work is inspired by "shopping, supermarkets, TV, toy commercials, LEGO, computer games, the news, magazines".^[6] Vermehr has also cited the picture books of Ali Mitgutsch as an influence.^[5]

Vermehr began experimenting with pixel art in the mid-1990s because digital images could be reproduced without any loss in quality.^[1] The studio works within an 8-bit style but rejects the retro label; Vermehr has called the association "a very common misconception," saying the choice was technical rather than nostalgic.^[1] Sauerteig has said the medium appeals because "you are forced to simplify and abstract things."^[4]

The studio maintains a shared database of more than 5,000 modular elements, accumulated over its history and recombined for each new project.^[1] A detailed cityscape takes roughly six to eight weeks of full-time work by all three members.^[4]

eBoy's first major commission was a Pac-Man-style online game for MTV's Spring Break website in 1998.^[1] The studio has since worked with Adidas,^[7] Adobe,^[8] Bungalow Records,^[9] Coca-Cola,^[1] DKNY,^[10] FontShop,^[1] Gola,^[11] Honda,^[8] Kidrobot,^[1] Louis Vuitton,^[12] MTV,^[1] the New York Times,^[1] Nike,^[8] Paul Smith,^[7] and Xbox.^[1]

They designed the album covers for Groove Armada's Soundboy Rock (2007),^[13] Yuzu's YUZUTOWN (2020),^[2] and the Wombats' Fix Yourself, Not the World (2022).^[14]

The studio's largest works are Pixoramas, detailed isometric cityscapes that can take more than 1,000 hours to assemble.^[15] The studio has produced more than 20 since 1998,^[1] including:

• Baltimore^[10]
• Berlin^[10]
• London^[7]
• Los Angeles^[7]
• New York^[10]
• Paris^[10]
• Rio^[7]
• San Francisco^[16]
• Tokyo^[10]

A selection was published as a book in 2008.^[17]

• eBoy (2002). HELLO. London: Laurence King. ISBN 978-1-85669-303-5.
• eBoy (2008). Pixorama. Berlin: eBoy. ISBN 978-3-00-025838-1.