An imagined city never ends. It keeps growing past the edge of what you can see. Cities captures that from above: 500 aerial grids of one infinite concept.
Efdot is an NYC-based artist whose work lives on everything from walls, to screens, to skateboards. Trained as a designer, he left that world to draw full time. His semi-abstract style pulls from street art, murals, and a lifelong love of the city grid.
Diid is a generative artist and creative coder. His work bridges hand-drawn aesthetics with computational precision, building systems that give visual ideas a life of their own.
You know this grid. You would walk it every day. But when did you last see it? Cities makes the familiar unfamiliar again. Zoomed way out, all details fall away. You stop being yourself. You become one dot among millions, a witness to a collective consciousness. Each mark invites you to imagine a story. Millions of these stories overlap to form the fabric of the city.
The Algorithm▼
Over three years, we built the Cities algorithm from rules developed through hand drawing. We repeated the same loop until the system started surprising us: expand, simplify, balance. When you work by hand, the work carries your personality. When you work generatively, the system develops one of its own.
Color as Time + Energy▼
Layer upon layer of color builds the illusion of time passing. 112 palettes capture every hour, from quiet dawn to electric midnight. Each City carries one of four energies: Rising, Living, Fading, or Resting. We wanted to reflect the full range of light experienced in real cities. Rare palettes mirror rare moments: a sunset over the river is a special find, just as it would be in life.
Find Your Grid▼
Each of the 112 palettes belongs to one of four energy groups. Collectors build grids around these energies.
☀️
RisingMorning light
🏙️
LivingDaytime
🌆
FadingDusk and evening
🌃
RestingNight
⚡️
Energy Set ⚡️One from each group
Collector Benefits▼
1 City→ Allow list or early access spot on the upcoming project, *****
4 Cities→ 1/1 airdrop of Efdot's upcoming project, *****
8 Cities→ 2 airdrops + a commission from Efdot
Special Thanks▼
To every collector who believed in this project while it was still being built: thank you. Your early support gave us the confidence to keep pushing, experimenting, and refining. The streets are brighter because of you.
Be Part of It
Have a wall, a city, or an idea? Murals, prints, editions, and community projects happen through conversation.
The aerial view becomes a canvas. Paint on walls, cities from above.
Early Murals
NYC · DC · Norwalk
2020
First digital cities. Hand-drawn, frame by frame. Every line placed by choice.
Open Minds
What does the mind see?What does the mind see, as it expands and connects the dots? Hand-drawn lines, frame by frame, finding beauty in the spaces between.
Collected by Sighduck · Valdi · Fin444 · AMT Collections
2021
The turning point. Hand-drawn layers become a rules-based system. Same hand, new process.
O.M.A.G.E.2021 · Open Minds Analog Generative Experiment
Where it all shifted. Hand-drawn layers stacked by rules, not random. Still analog, but thinking in probabilities, rules and physics. Screen print series.