Ben-Day dots
Comic book shading
Ben-Day dots are the colored dots used in commercial printing to create shades and secondary colors through optical mixing.
Named after illustrator Benjamin Day, the technique dominated newspapers and comic books through most of the 20th century.
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein made the dots iconic by enlarging them to visible scale, turning a cheap printing technique into fine art.
The term now evokes comic book aesthetics generally: The poster had that Ben-Day dots look.
- halftoneDot-based image reproduction
- LichtensteinBenday dots painter
- pop artMass culture as canvas
- printingReproducing text mechanically
- print shopCommercial copying establishment
Roy Lichtenstein · color separation · comics · stippling · screen · CMYK · newspaper · pulp · raster · gradients · ink · offset · rosette · moire · pointillism · Warhol · retro · yellow
- dot patternsBraille, halftone, stippling, pointillism, microdots
- shading techniqueshatching, crosshatch, pointillism, gradient, tone
- halftoneshalftone, dither, dithering, screens, rosette
Ben-Day dotscontinuous tone
Uninterrupted audio frequency
inkjet printing · airbrushing · gravure · solid color · flat color
Ben-Day dotsphotorealism
Art imitating camera accuracy
chiaroscuro · trompe l'oeil · oil painting · watercolor wash