Hiroshi Ono

(June 24, 1957 – October 16, 2021) was a Japanese video game artist. He spent most of his career at Namco and later Bandai Namco, designing pixel art and cabinet artwork for their arcade video games. Because of his focus and expertise on pixel art, he was nicknamed Mr. Dotman and The Wizard of Dot Art.

Early life Ono was born on June 24, 1957,

Career Ono was hired at Namco in 1979, and one of his first tasks was to help improve the logo and bezel art for Galaxian. As he became more involved with other projects, such as Tank Battalion and Warp & Warp, he also began working on the pixel art used within the game itself in addition to the physical game cabinet art. Many of Namco's arcade games during the golden age of arcade video games through the early 1980s featured his pixel art, including Galaga, Dig Dug, and Mappy.

Between 1989 and 2000, Ono was transferred to Namco's electro-mechanical game division, where he continued to design art and layout for the game cabinets, such as Golly! Ghost!. He was then transferred to Namco's new mobile game division established in 2000, which allowed him to return to creating pixel art. so he reduced his freelance work.

Death Ono died on October 16, 2021, from suspected autoimmune hepatitis.