Hasta La Ideas

Test print by artist Davidope

I’ve never gone back and looked at a GIF I’d already seen; I see them as cute, fun and ultimately disposable. But a legion of artists, a pair of data visualiss and several hundred Kickstarter backers disagree with me. Thus Gifpop, a campaign to create physical GIFs that you can hold in your hand, reached and doubled its funding target in less than 24 hours. (Admittedly, keeping the target at a low $5,000 probably helped.)

By using lenticular film—that striated, prism-filled plastic that can show you different images as you tilt it—architect and data visualist Sha Hwang, and data visualist Rachel Binx, are seeking to print physical cards that display “animated” GIFs. “We think that gifs and lenticular printing are two simple, lo-fi technologies that were made for each other,” the duo writes. And with a max capacity of ten frames per card, lenticular film is in fact a good GIF fit (even if it’s not for Vine, although the pair have set that as a future goal).

There’s still over three weeks left to pledge, and for a low $12 buy-in, you can have a GIF of your choice printed onto a 3×3 card and mailed to you. (Larger sizes available for more bread.) Here’s Hwang and Binx’s pitch video:

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