The Economist
Project Type
Illustration
Role
3D Art & Illustration
Deliverables
Cinema 4D, Octane Render
Introduction
A commission from The Economist to produce 3D art for two concurrent publications: the main magazine cover depicting electronic chips spilling from a McDonald's-style potato chip bag, and a complete illustration suite for the Technology Quarterly — an issue dedicated to microchips and the Internet of Things. The renders were produced to pass for studio photography.
The Economist commissioned a cover and a full editorial suite around one idea: the microchip as the defining technology of our era. The brief asked for imagery that could work on a newsstand, pass for a studio photograph, and land a visual pun well enough to make you look twice.
The Brief
The commission arrived in two parts. First: a main magazine cover for The Economist's "Chips with Everything" feature — a 3D render of electronic microchips spilling from a McDonald's-style potato chip bag. The image needed to land the pun on sight and hold up to the scrutiny that comes with one of the world's most widely-read news covers. Second: a complete illustration suite for the Technology Quarterly — an extended editorial feature on the microchip and the Internet of Things — requiring covers, openers, and in-story visuals across multiple articles. Cover art direction was led by Graeme James and Ben Shmulevitch; the 3D art was built and rendered from scratch.
The Economist, "Chips with Everything" — magazine cover, September 2019.
The Cover
The concept rests on a single visual pun — electronic chips and potato chips, two products sharing a name but separated by a century of industrial history. The render places silicon wafers and integrated circuits inside a greasy takeaway bag: familiar packaging, impossible contents. The aim was to pass for a studio photograph. Not to look like CGI. Octane Render was used to achieve material accuracy — the specific translucency of the plastic bag, the grease stain distribution, the metallic sheen of the chip surfaces, the catchlights. If the viewer can almost reach in and eat one, the metaphor is complete. Two constraints governed every decision: the image had to read instantly at newsstand scale, and it had to hold up at full digital spread. Most covers fail one of the two.
Cover and alternate crop — "Chips with Everything."
Technology Quarterly
The Technology Quarterly commission was a larger editorial problem: a full visual system for a multi-article feature on microchips and the Internet of Things. Each image needed to communicate a specific article angle while belonging to a consistent visual family — the same conceptual logic as the cover carried through to every story. A cow patterned entirely in QR codes. Potatoes that turn out to be integrated circuits. Everyday scenes quietly colonised by connected technology. Absurdist in premise, precise in execution. Each render was produced to the same standard as the cover: material accuracy, studio-quality light, the uncanny feeling that this could have been photographed rather than built.
Technology Quarterly: Chips with everything — editorial opener, September 2019.
Story visuals — IoT cow and silicon potatoes.
Technology Quarterly — full illustration suite.
The Economist — "Chips with Everything" — cover and Technology Quarterly story illustrations, September 2019.
