Games as artwork

    Just like any strong market, the gaming world always finds ways to create new branches and sub fields aside from strict gaming/playing. We saw one of these sub-genres in class in the movie Reformat the Planet through the reincarnation of the Nintendo Game Boy in chip music. As I began to research other ways gamers stay engaged, I found a new medium to apply to games- art. Whether through fanfictional drawings or 8bit paintings, games have carried their appeal to artists.
    TitanVex is a graphic designer from Wisconsin who creates artwork through typography for popular games. Some of his most recent and popular work can be found here. What I found most interesting about these images is the way main motifs and ideas from the games are represented. Not only do the words come together in the shape of the logo or main character of the game, but the words themselves carry meaning through their size and placement. In addition, each piece of TitanVex's work has a different focus. For example, the Pacman image is created through the words for sounds in the game, "wakawaka" and "chomp"; the Animal Crossing image uses character's names from the game; the Pokemon image uses the words from the Pokemon Theme Song, enlarging the words that capture the main idea of the game. TitanVex's arrangement of simple motifs from games into units of meaning allows games to be enjoyed through this new medium. Although the ideas and processes are taken from the games, their existence as a piece of art allows them to be introduced as a separate entity of gaming - art.
   The world of gaming is limitless, not only within game design but also within gaming communities. Gamers are always finding new ways to share the ideas, situations, characters, and worlds held within games, and through this they are able to create new roles for themselves while engaging new audiences. The ability to bring tangible representations of a digital world into the real world is something truly remarkable.