Unlock Your Creativity: Master Retro Pixel Art Design with Adobe in 2025!

Pixel Art is back! The aesthetics of old consoles and nostalgia have completely overtaken the current cultural scene, something you can see in series like Stranger Things or games like Blasphemous. Despite its apparent simplicity, creating and designing pixel images can involve more work than you think. Fortunately, Adobe Illustrator can help us with that.

You won’t need advanced knowledge either: here, we will teach you how to create and design pixel art through Illustrator simply and quickly.

What is Pixel Art?

As its name suggests, Pixel Art is, in essence, art created by individual pixels. This type of art seeks to emulate the graphics of classic video games, like the original Super Mario or Final Fantasy. The colors used are limited and based on low resolutions, where each pixel plays an essential role in the final work. Its origin stems from the technical limitations that computers and consoles had in the 20th century.

Creating good pixel art is challenging for artists and designers. The limitations of size, colors, and shapes force one to simplify forms and compose in a more strategic way. However, anyone can easily learn from scratch.

Draw with pixels in Illustrator

From Illustrator, we can start creating Pixel Art in this way:

• Open Illustrator and select New File. Choose a size of 1000 x 1000 pixels.
• Go to View and enable Smart Guides.
• Build a pixel matrix by clicking on the Rectangular Grid Tool in the toolbar. Set the size to 1000 pixels and Dividers to 18.
• Select the Live Paint Bucket tool to start drawing.
• When finished, right-click on the grid and select Ungroup. Then go to Object > Live Paint > Expand.
• Use the Magic Wand Tool (Y) to select and delete the grid.

Creating pixel art in Illustrator allows you to make vector images, enabling you to resize your designs without losing quality.

Transform an image into pixels

Illustrator also allows us to transform bitmap illustrations into Pixel Art. Follow these steps:

• Open your image in Illustrator (JPEG or PNG).
• Select your illustration and go to Object, then Create Object Mosaic.
• Adjust the Number of Tiles to your desired pixel ratio.
• Clean the image with the Direct Selection tool and add or remove colors.

The Resurgence of Pixel Art

While it never really disappeared, Pixel Art is experiencing a new golden age. There is currently a high demand for Pixel Art, especially within the video game world. Titles like Shovel Night, The Red Strings Club, and Vampire Survivors evoke the aesthetics of old consoles while also bringing a fresh touch.

Use these methods as a starting point to create increasingly elaborate and complex designs.