Low Poly
- faceted 3D
- triangulated render
- polygon art
Everything made of flat triangles, each a single colour, with the facets clearly visible.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Low poly gives depth without detail, which is exactly what a poster wants: a scene that reads instantly and holds up when printed small.
It also ages well because it never pretended to be real. A photorealistic render from 2014 looks dated; a faceted one does not.
How it works
Build the whole scene from flat triangles. Angular mountains, faceted trees, a polygonal figure. Nothing is smoothed.
Shade per face: each triangle gets one flat tone based on its angle to the light, with no gradient across it.
One soft directional light with long flat shadows, a limited harmonious palette such as teal, coral and cream, and a gentle gradient sky. Set the title flat over the render in a clean sans.
When to use it
Use it for a tech event, a hiking or outdoor event, a games night, a conference, a school event, a product launch.
Leave it alone when the subject needs texture or warmth. Everything comes out smooth and slightly cold.
Told apart from its neighbours
Pixel art is two dimensional and built from squares. Low poly is three dimensional and built from triangles.
Contemporary flat illustration has no lighting at all. Low poly is lit, which is where its depth comes from.
Cubism fragments a subject into ambiguous overlapping planes. Low poly keeps the space completely coherent.
Where it was used
Monument Valley in 2014 is the best known commercial example, and mobile game art of the early 2010s ran on the style because it rendered fast on weak hardware. Timothy Reynolds made a career of the illustration version.
- Monument Valley
- early mobile game art
- Timothy Reynolds
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own event, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
poster for <event>, low poly 3D render, the whole scene built from visible flat triangular facets each filled with a single flat colour and no texture, faceted shading so each face reads as a distinct tone, a simple landscape of angular mountains and trees, one soft directional light with long flat shadows, a limited harmonious palette of teal coral and cream, a clean sans title set flat over the render, gentle gradient sky, <date, time and place> in a small flat panel
What goes wrong
The model returns a smooth 3D render. Ask for visible flat triangular facets, each filled with a single flat colour and no gradient across any face.
The second failure is texture. Say there are no texture maps and no surface detail, only flat coloured faces.
Leave out
smooth surfaces, texture maps, photorealism, curves, complex detail
Watch for
Each face is one flat colour. Any smooth shading across a face removes the whole style.
Questions
Print it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
Next to it in made of pixels and polygons
