The Bitmap Brothers: Universe

Information

I initiated, crowdfunded, edited and designed this biography of the visionary British software house behind seminal videogames such as Xenon 2: Megablast, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and The Chaos Engine. The design echoes the team’s creative ethos, with stylistic nods to steampunk, art deco and comicbook futurism. The case is quarter bound, featuring a dual cover illustration by original Bitmaps artist Dan Malone.

Roles

Concept, Art Direction, Graphic Design, Editing

Cover Illustration

Dan Malone

Client

Read-Only Memory

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For the first time in print, game imagery in The Bitmap Brothers: Universe has been processed to accurately mimic a CRT monitor. A shader was developed specially for the book by NVIDIA graphics engineer Timothy Lottes, carefully emulating the slot mask display of the Commodore 1084 monitor – the gold standard for videogame display in the Bitmap Brothers’ heyday. The shader has been made open source (available here) for use with both print and screen applications.

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