Have you ever wanted to find out what font is being used or what colour something is? It can be difficult to find out. The best way we have so far is to take a picture, wait until we get to a computer and find it later. A new gadget has been designed by Fiona O’Leary for her graduation project at the Royal College of Art.
What Is It?
This device is called Spector. It essentially captures typefaces and colours, giving you details on what it is so you can use it later. Currently, the gadget is just a working prototype. But, there’s possibly a demand for it with workers in the design area. Spector would enable the user to broaden their design capabilities, to learn more about fonts and colour, and to find exactly what they’re after without having to settle for something similar.
How Does Spector Work?
So, how does Spector work? The user places the gadget over the paper, poster, wall, or any physical object. A button is depressed and a camera inside takes a picture. Using an algorithm, Spector analyses the typeface’s shape and design/learns the CMYK/RGB values of the font/colour. From there, the information is sent to a database and the font/colour is matched to a wide collection of fonts/colours.
Using InDesign, Spector can change any highlighted area to the font/colour of your real world scan. There’s also enough memory in the device to store up to 20 font samples.
“When you design for print on screen, it never looks like how it’s going to print. If you’re going to design for print on screen you should start with print,” O’Leary says. As graphic designers know, creating digital designs to scale, knowing how colours are going to come across and how the font/colour will look is often different to what you think it will be.
Spector isn’t available to the public yet. It’s not on Kickstarter, and there’s no talk of development. But, it’s a great idea that should be given attention and pursued. For people in design, being able to discover new fonts and specific colours would mean being able to create something special, create something closer to the design they want.
Source: Wired
