Handheld Tool Is Like Shazam for Fonts and OMG We Need It
Visual inspiration can strike anywhere, but you might not be in front of your computer when it does. The color of a piece of fruit, the typeface on a book of matches—the best you can do to capture these moments is take a photo and reference it later.
That’s not the worst solution, but Fiona O’Leary has a better idea. For her graduation project at the Royal College of Art, O’Leary developed a handy, handheld tool she calls Spector that captures typefaces and colors in the real world, and then transfers them directly to InDesign.
Full disclosure: Spector is a prototype. A working prototype, but a prototype, nonetheless. You can’t buy it, and while O’Leary is interested in commercializing it, she’s in no rush. There’s no whizbang Spector website or neatly manicured Kickstarter campaign; for now, it’s a smart, charming idea that creates an eminently practical bridge between physical and digital media—which is exactly why it caught our eye.
