It's Pronounced Bez-E-Ay

If I were to get a tattoo, it would be of this:


Well, maybe not, but it's still important, albeit maybe not enough to warrant a permanent place upon my skin. It's the basic equation for the Bézier curve.

Pierre Bézier was working for Renault—a French automobile maker—in the early '60s when he needed a way to more precisely render the contours of the car bodies he worked on. Although Bézier did not create the curve, because of his application it forever shares his namesake.


So why does it matter?

This curve creates the smooth vector lines modern designers and 3D artists rely on entirely. The equation for this curve is used every time you open up Illustrator or Maya, draw a path in Photoshop, write text in InDesign, and even modify WordArt.


It is the differenece between the jagged, rasterized, edges on the left and the smooth, infinitely scalable, contours on the right. These lines are manipulated by control points, which alter the severity of the curve.

So while it may not be physically on my body, it certainly has shaped the life of anyone who has sat in front of a computer.