Have you ever read a brochure or a signboard and wondered what font it used? Or have you ever looked at nature and wonder how you could achieve similar colors when drawing digitally? We suppose there are some of us who have a knack for these kinds of things, but for those who don’t, you’re in luck (sort of).
Fiona O’Leary, a student at the Royal College of Art, has recently developed a prototype device called the Spector. What it does is that by moving the device over text and objects, it will be able to pick up and identify things like the font used in a book, or the exact shade of green on a leaf/plant.
This means that if you’ve always wanted to draw and paint accurately, this device will be able to give you the exact colors. It can even identify seven different font families, type size, kerning, and leading, all of which might come in handy for designers, although just like stealing images or ripping songs illegally, there are instances of typeface piracy which the Spector could unwittingly facilitate.
Unfortunately it seems that for now, the Spector remains a prototype. O’Leary does plan to eventually commercialize it, but don’t expect it to happen anytime soon. In the meantime you can check it out in action in the video above.
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