The making of the World Computer Graphics Day poster

Computer graphics as a term is as obvious as it is useless, since it seems to be all-encompassing. The traditional practice of turning girls into angels by giving them Photoshopped wings. Tasteful use of the blur tool to remove pimples. Drawing icons which would bring a medieval miniaturist to tears. Hardcore fantasy art, full of scantily clad Amazons covered with amber sweat drops flying into the sunset on dragons with scales like roof tiles. Modeling the dragon and the Amazon in 3D, carefully preserving the sweat and the scales. Gaming industry. Architecture. Movies. Logos. Typefaces. Retrotrash of the 90s. Pixel art. No, no, stop, it’s too much, go away. We need something clear and simple.

Art director: We’ve had boobs already.

Let’s get down to basics (which is where we should have started). Turns out, the holiday is the idea of Alias and is supposed to celebrate 3D graphics (thus, 3December). It makes it all clear. The traditional symbol of 3D design is a primitive model of a teapot. And a teapot belongs on a table. And the table should be from the traditional, warm, two-dimensional art where samovar reflections were diligently drawn by hand.

Art director: There, just what we need.

Asking the sensei of computer graphics to make it look good.

Inserting the teapot.