No. 039, in eleven platesHe Blue It
A thousand doodled faces in white ink, and one small figure who missed the memo about the dress code.
He Blue It is drawn in white ink on black, a scratchy cartoon line that turns hundreds of people into texture: hatched bodies, round heads, two dots for eyes. There is exactly one spot of colour per plate, a figure in flat marker blue, and the whole series rests on that single decision. The title is a pun on "he blew it", which suits a hero who cannot quite blend in.
The blue figure behaves differently each time. In The Parting the crowd draws back to leave a white path, and it stands in the middle with its arms out. In Periscope it has stretched so thin it pokes above the horizon of heads. Big Blue gives it a large round head and a worried frown; Blue Halo turns the colour into a disc behind a small white figure; Smiling in the Dark lets it grin from a crowd shaded in grey hatching. Elsewhere it simply waits, a head taller than its neighbours, while some of the white faces turn to stare.
The top half of almost every plate is flat black, so the Lock Screen clock sits on nothing at all and reads crisply in white. The crowd rises from the bottom edge to roughly the middle of the screen, which means Home Screen icons land on dense line work. It behaves best in dark mode with tinted icons, and the blue figure usually stands high enough in the crowd to stay visible between rows.
It is for introverts, contrarians, designers who like a single accent colour, and anyone who has stood at a party wondering why they came. Head Above, The Parting and Big Blue are free, in full resolution, no strings; the other eight are premium.
Everyone else is drawn in the same three strokes. One of them got the blue pen.
Try each one on before you save it.
Tap any plate to hang it on the Lock Screen, then switch to the Home Screen to see it behind your apps. This is the same preview the app gives you, on your own phone, with your own clock.
Every plate here can be ordered as an unframed matte print, from A$59 with free shipping. Or hang three side by side: any three plates from He Blue It, 8 × 16 in each, for A$179.
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Plate IThe Parting -
Plate IIHead Above -
Plate IIIPeriscope -
Plate IVTall Order -
Plate VBlue Halo -
Plate VIOdd One Out -
Plate VIIBig Blue -
Plate VIIIShoulder to Shoulder -
Plate IXSmiling in the Dark -
Plate XLost in the Throng -
Plate XIGhost Crowd
How He Blue It wears.
Wry, solitary, graphic, playful. White-ink doodle with one spot colour, sized for every iPhone up to 2160 × 4800.
On the Lock Screen
Solid black above the crowd gives the time a clean field, and the blue figure sits just below it like a footnote.
On the Home Screen
Busy white line work fills the lower half, so pair it with dark mode and tinted icons to keep the grid readable.
Full resolution, every model
Each plate is delivered at the exact size of your iPhone's screen, up to 2160 × 4800, so nothing is stretched or soft at the edges.
- Ink black#000000
- Chalk white#FFFFFF
- Marker blue#1080E0
- Hatch grey#808080
- Charcoal#404040
Free plates, and the rest.
Open He Blue It in pxCream and preview any plate on your Lock Screen first. Prices come from the App Store in your region and are shown in the app before you buy.
He Blue It
Three free platesFree
Full resolution, saved straight to Photos.
A single premium plate10 credits
Yours for good: re-download it any time, on this iPhone, at no extra cost.
pxCream UnlimitedMonthly
Every premium plate in He Blue It and the rest of the gallery, for as long as you subscribe.
On the App Store · iPhone only · No account needed
About He Blue It.
Is the upper half really black?
Yes. In every plate the crowd stops around the middle and the space above is flat black, which suits OLED iPhones and an always-on display.
Why is it called He Blue It?
The name plays on "he blew it". Each plate is a small comedy about the one figure who could not blend in, whether he is smiling about it or not.
What do these cost?
Head Above, The Parting and Big Blue cost nothing. The other eight are premium, 10 credits apiece in the pxCream app with re-downloads forever, or all eleven on Unlimited.
Something else? Support answers within two business days.
He Blue It, in your pocket.
pxCream is on the App Store for iPhone, with He Blue It and the rest of the gallery inside.