Articles

Game Development Company Displays Billboard Made With MS Paint

by . December 23rd, 2015

Marketing is the business of making people talk about your product.

Be it bad publicity or controversial use of imagery, anything that can make people talk is almost always good marketing. But how about intentional crappy design?

Game development software company Scirra did just that.

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To promote their HTML5 2D game creator Construct 2, Scirra created and displayed a billboard made entirely in MS Paint.

The 35 square meter billboard is currently on display near South Bermondsey train station in south-east London at the intersection of Rotherhithe and Ilderton roads.

In an interview with tech website Ars Technica, Tom Gullen, co-founder of Scirra, said that the picture was done in about 15-20 minutes and he was “pretty happy” with the result.

“The most difficult part was drawing it to the billboard company’s specification, as they want everything super high resolution, high DPI, etc.,” Tom explained. “They thought I was joking with them at first until we paid for it.”

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Design-wise, the billboard uses quite a functional approach. It shows pixel portions meant to represent the genres of games you can create with the software. The symmetrical arrangement of each element provides a spatial balance that is quite pleasing to the eye.

There is plenty of literal white space to please the minimalist crowd but the bold colors and energetic expressions of the rock n’ roll games guy and alien games green alien says “Hey, we can be quirky too.”

The italicized Comic Sans MS juxtaposed to the blazing Construct2.com text gives a nice, authentic, Microsoft Paint touch.

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“I think a lot of people new to game developing are disheartened because they are overly ambitious,” Tom said. “This advertisement is meant to say to them: your first efforts might not be AAA standard, but everyone has to start somewhere!”

The same can be said for your billboard design endeavors, Tom!

A Construct 2 personal license is available for $129.99 and is also available to try for free.

Which element of the MS Paint billboard design caught your eye? Comment below!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kevin is a reader first, a writer second, and a gamer somewhere in between. When not rooting for Tyrion Lannister for the Iron Throne, he's probably writing some morbid short story. He enjoys some surreal art, clever advertising campaigns, and a warm cup of coffee while reading Murakami.