VWFNDR™ — 009

23 APPRECIATIONS + EXCITING 24

Dec 27, 2023

What a year 2023 has been, we humbly started VWFNDR as a side project and it ended up packed with exciting developments, along with incredible people supporting it. And, of course, we appreciate you for being part of this journey. Thank you for sticking around.

WELCOME LUCAS

We are proud to welcome Lucas Seidenfaden, a software engineer based in London, to join the VIEWFINDER project as an active participant in developing KEIRIN prototypes!

One day, he contacted us with an already working camera prototype featuring a KEIRIN-like interface. Lucas brings a skillset that was missing in the core team, perfectly aligning with the ethos and open-source values of VWFNDR. We knew we had to have him on the team, and we feel very fortunate that he joined!

Lucas was secretly featured in our previous issue — 008

I’m a design engineer with a focus on software. I love bringing new ideas to life through quick prototyping for web, mobile, and, when I’m lucky, hardware projects. While my focus is primarily on creating products in the digital world I’m also rediscovering my passion for photography, which got me excited about the VWFNDR project.

Lucas will write the upcoming newsletter, VWFNDR™ — 010, an overview of our 1st working prototype! don’t miss it.

PROTOTYPE 001 — TESTING GROUND

The goal for the prototype is to be a canvas we can use to probe interaction patterns, test the form factor in the real world, and have fun with a camera we made while learning and iterating.

PROTOTYPE 002 — CURVED SCREEN

YES, we curved a screen!
And although it broke on us, the upcoming year is bringing fascinating surprises. We are currently working on the second version of this showcase prototype with a new curved screen and we cannot wait to show you more about it in this newsletter and IRL in Tokyo, in April! (more news about it by early 2024)

2023 — APPRECIATIONS

So many people contacted us to share their excitement for the project with praise as well as very useful feedback. But we are most thankful to be surrounded by the skilled and passionate people who helped us actively and extensively (and for the love of art) on different parts of the project. Forever gracias.

ACTIVE COLLABORATORS

Christopher Morales — UI Animation
Aravind Kaimal — 3D Visualization
Sasoh Shinya — 3D Animation
Alex Abian — Team Photo & Feedback
Brian Schwind — 3D Print
Adam Esposito — 3D Print & Feedback

ONLINE COMMUNITY

KEIRIN was incredibly well accepted on the SNS by the general public - mostly designers, photographers and camera enthusiasts.

We were picked by some online design accounts and even in the “Designers Hall of Fame”; SearchSystem™ - Thank you all.

But, of course, when things are online, 'everyone is a critic,' and we inevitably receive some harsh criticism too. Nonetheless, love proved stronger than hate, and among all the comments, the following ones are, by far, our favourites, summarizing why we started this project in the first place.

ITERATING FROM FEEDBACK

When we released the Aspirational Messages a few months back, a person on Twitter suggested that we would love to see these types of contextual messages as a notification system you can customize. And so we listened and iterated on it - now, KEIRIN will inform you when is the best time to get the shot you were looking for!