It's a widely held belief that the Old Masters were exactly that: Masters, such as district attorney Vinci and Vermeer, who painted in flawlessly precise freehand. There are savants with footsure hands, zero inquiry. But there are other techniques to look at, which Jacques Louis David Hockney (an creative person of our age who also pioneered iPad art), expounds on in Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Hand-me-down Edgar Lee Masters, in which atomic number 2 lays out exactly how European painters secondhand mirrors and lenses to create their compositionally immaculate portraits.

That surprised Golan Levin, an interaction designer and a tech public presentation artist of sorts–and one of Fast Company's citizenry shaping the future of design in 2012. Wherefore? "Mostly because information technology seemed like a Sojourner Truth, but none of my colleagues talked about it," he tells Co.Design. Levin teaches at Carnegie Mellon and besides sits on the admission staff. "All these students come to me from high school, and they think art equals painting, and painting equals realistic painting. They're existence set adequate to believe they need superhuman powers."

Pablo Garcia, an art prof at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, has been hip the (controversial) idea for any years and has accumulated an large aggregation of optics. He offered to let Levin try out a camera lucida, one of the tools Hockney says the Old Masters used to becharm their subjects more realistically. Levin idolised it, and the duo decided to make a 21st-century version.


A television camera lucida is a simple machine: A small optical prism reflects the image of the subject so the watcher can see their possess hand, plus the icon, and trace a much accurate rendition onto the paper. The burden isn't far inactive from the Google Glass video demos we've been seeing. There are layers of images available in your line of sight–for you to use in some smart way. But the only lucidas still available are collectibles, and run a damage go after in the north of $300–Sir Thomas More than Levin and Garcia believed college students would pay. As information technology turns out, manufacturing retributory several lucidas costs $20,000, but each additional prism costs retributive pennies.

Which is wherefore the NeoLucida sells for $30. It's perfect for Kickstarter. Since launching the product happening May 8, Levin and Garcia are already hearing from populate who missed out on the first 2,500 they successful available. Merely unequal most new runaway Kickstarter hits, this isn't–or wasn't–supposititious to be a business. "This whole thing is a performance, or an intervention, or just graphics," Levin says. Luckily, the project had enough demand and sake so that just two years after going live, Levin and Garcia confirmed that there will be an unlimited second yield run, conducted aside professional manufacturers.

The effects of getting the NeoLucidas tabu into the market should be intriguing. Animators, filmmakers, and diagram-mappers are all groups that Levin and Garcia mention as logical customers. Because for all the advancements we sustain with graphic example and photography, masses still want roll ahead their sleeves and draw the likes of an old master.

The jut has already up most $400,000, far beyond its goal of $15,000. Reinforcement the campaign here.