Would you print your Boomerangs?
Introducing Pops. The first moving prints.
No, print is not dead.
Today, you can’t have missed the trend of “instant printing”. Modern versions of the good old Polaroid (invented in 1948 by Edwin H. Land) are launched every year. Fujifilm’s Instax is surely the most popular (5M cameras sold in 2015, Amazon’s best seller) alongside with the latest Polaroid products, Snap and Pop. These cameras are toy-like devices for grown-ups. There are fun with a touch of retro. The makers behind the Impossible Project launched the most classy instant printing products and recently, Lomography released a great series of instant cameras that just might be the best on the market.
There is also inspiring innovations like the one developed by Prynt, a photo-printing phone case which started as a popular Kickstarter project. Prynt introduced a sexy new feature: when you “scan” the print with your phone it projects a video on top of the photo in a sort of augmented reality viewfinder, giving movement, sound and context to a still photo. Which is a great way to relive fleeting memories.
Like these guys, we believe that nothing will ever replace something you can touch. Like them, we think there is room for innovation. When we started working on the subject, we agreed on one thing: the unbeatable hardware in the photo world is your smartphone. We noticed that the big teams were working on an exciting trend: moving photos. There are all part of a same family: world-famous Boomerang, VSCO Engineering’s GIF-making app DSCO, Apple Live Photos and Polaroid Swing developed a new kind of photos that capture life’s short moments and create a dose of magic.
From that moment, we only had one thought in mind : what if we could recreate the same magic on paper?
Discover Pops, photos born to be alive.
Today, we are introducing Pops. The very first moving prints. Pops is fun to use, fun to play with and truly magic.
Pops is inspired by holographic cards I found on my cereals when I was a kid. Photos go dynamic when you move the print with a twist. With Pops team, our goal was the rebirth of this iconic product, tailored to print the next-generation of mobile photos (Boomerangs, LivePhotos, etc.) while keeping the wonder.
We found a cool space in Brooklyn, met talented photographers, hired great engineers+developers and began experimenting. We did a lot of researches to find the right printing technique that give any print an illusion of depth and the perfect animation effect. When found the secret sauce we focused on the product: glossy plastic paper, soft texture, sticky paper, etc. to deliver a product that can fit anywhere.
For now, you can print your Boomerangs! But soon, you’ll be able to print every moving photos. If you don’t have Boomerang, don’t worry, we developed a camera to shoot animated photos. Photos that move when you swing your phone. The same way the prints move in your hands.
Pops isn’t fancy. It’s scary simple. It’s both vintage and modern. When I had the first prototype in my hands, I couldn’t stop playing with it. My six years old nephew loved it. My sixteen years old cousin find it “rad”.
This is the very first product of a long series driven by the faith that print is not dead. It’s more alive than ever 🔥.
Download Pops on the AppStore.
About us 🤓
Pops is a technology and printing company based in Paris and Brooklyn.
It’s fuelled by 8 people. Pops is backed by Kima Ventures + Raivac.
