Imagine being able to capture colours and fonts anywhere you are, and transfer them straight to InDesign. That’s what Spector can do, and while the gadget is still a prototype, its future is promising.
Image: Supplied
Wired tracked down the gadget creator, Fiona O’Leary, who developed Spector for her graduation project at the Royal College of Art. O’Leary calls Spector a “physical eyedropper”.
Getting it to work is simple — you put the Spector over whatever you want to capture and take a photo with the built-in camera. An algorithm translates the image into information about the shape of the typeface, or the color’s CMYK/RGB values, which is sent a font or color database for identification.
You can store up to 20 “captures” on Spector, or a custom plugin can port the font or color information to InDesign (if your computer is handy), and then you can highlight text or projects to automatically change to same you’ve selected.
So while you can’t throw your money at this invention right at this moment, be sure to watch this space.