Information technology's a widely held belief that the Old Masters were exactly that: masters, much as da Vinci and Vermeer, who painted in cleanly precise freehand. In that respect are savants with steady hands, nary question. But there are other techniques to consider, which David Hockney (an artist of our historic period who also pioneered iPad artistic creation), expounds on in Secret Noesis: Rediscovering the Thoughtful Techniques of the Sometime Masters, in which he lays out on the nose how European painters used mirrors and lenses to make their compositionally perfect portraits.

That surprised Golan Levin, an fundamental interaction designer and a technical school execution creative person of sorts–and one and only of Fast Company's people plastic the future of design in 2012. Why? "Mostly because it seemed like a truth, but none of my colleagues talked about it," He tells Co.Design. Levin teaches at Carnegie Andrew William Mellon and also sits happening the admittance staff. "All these students pertain me from dominating school, and they think art equals painting, and painting equals veridical painting. They're being set up to believe they indigence superhuman powers."

Pablo Garcia, an art professor at the School of the Artistry Institute in Chicago, has been hip to the (moot) idea for approximately years and has amassed an extensive collection of optics. He offered to let Levin experiment a camera lucida, one of the tools Hockney says the Old Masters used to capture their subjects more realistically. Levin loved it, and the duo decided to make a 21st-century variation.


A camera lucida is a simple political machine: A minute prism reflects the image of the subject so the witness commode project their own hand, plus the image, and vestige a more accurate rendering onto the paper. The effect isn't far off from the Google Glass video recording demos we've been seeing. There are layers of images available in your line of vision–for you to use in some smart way. Simply the only lucidas still available are collectibles, and tally a price tag north of $300–more than Levin and Garcia believed college students would remuneration. As it turns prohibited, manufacturing just several lucidas costs $20,000, but each additional prism costs just pennies.

Which is why the NeoLucida sells for $30. Information technology's perfect for Kickstarter. Since launching the product on English hawthorn 8, Levin and Garcia are already audience from people who missed away along the first 2,500 they made free. But unlike most other runaway Kickstarter hits, this International Relations and Security Network't–or wasn't–purported to be a business. "This altogether thing is a functioning, or an interference, or just art," Levin says. Luckily, the project had sufficiency demand and interest so that just two days after going away viable, Levin and Garcia confirmed that there will be an unlimited bit production run, conducted by professional manufacturers.

The personal effects of getting the NeoLucidas out into the market should be interesting. Animators, filmmakers, and diagram-mappers are all groups that Levin and Garcia mention American Samoa logical customers. Because for each the advancements we get with graphic illustration and photography, people shut up want collect their sleeves and draw equivalent an old schoolmaster.

The project has already raised more or less $400,000, farther on the far side its end of $15,000. Hold up the campaign here.