COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN

Ideation

I was previously the event coordinator for the Asian American Association and while we were thinking about cool interactive experiences to bring to our larger campus-wide events. An idea that came up multiple times was to rent a photobooth. Turns out, the starting price in the “affordable” range is $900… we couldn’t possibly spend half our budget on a photobooth but the thought always came up. If only there was something a little more portable and not $900…

I recently went to Vancouver and saw a receipt paper photobooth for the first time. I thought it was such a clever way to save a little on the photostrip paper (it was free!). Then, I spent the summer in NYC and found the receipt paper photobooths in various boutiques and home goods stores and realized it was a little more common than I thought. I’ve lost the photos since then </3 and it made me realize that while I love the photobooth experience, there was a lot I didn’t like about it. So if I was going to make something like this, I needed to make it my own and address all the issues that I have with photobooths.

My gripes with photobooths:

• the time between photos are too short sometimes
• unless you go in with a game plan for the exact poses you’re going to do, you’re cooked. i know this, yet you have no idea how many times I’ve paid $5-10 for a photobooth and ended up with either the same 4 poses or my friends and I kinda staring into the camera like :drool:
• it only spits out 1 photostrip
• its so common for people to take photobooth pics together, why does it always spit out 1 and then we have to do the slightly awkward “you can keep it” “no you can keep it” exchange
• sometimes I just don’t like the photo. i blink a lot apparently
• I can only post photos of the physical photostrip. Maybe this is has its own aesthetic, but I lose the actual photostrip half the time…
• i once walked into a photobooth with no camera preview i have no idea what i look like until it came out

So I realized this manifests into a couple key modifications that I want to make sure my photobooth has:

• customizable cooldown period between photos
• the ability to print n copies
• the ability to take multiple photos and be allowed to choose n
• QR code for a digital copy of the photostrip

Then, I thought of some cool features that I could add:

• multiple framing formats
• lean into receipt-ness - I remember receiptify being a huge thing and if I’m using receipt paper anyways
• standard photostrip
• polaroid-esque
• Wanted poster? mugshot?
• Newspaper
• pokemon card
• feature that autouploads to shared albums for events
• One of my favorite partiful features is the ability for any attendee to upload pics they took during the event.
• It would be so cool for the photos taken from this thorughout the night to be uploaded
• Different image processing effects
• customizable photo filters
• funky shutter triggers
• only take photos at the sound of laughter? screams?
• icebreaker mode
• it could enter icebreaker mode that prompts subjects to meet other people at the function
• ex.) find someone wearing the same color as you and take a picture with them
• suggest pose ideas

Process

This was a lot of ideation, but in physical hardware this really translates to a few key features to account for:

• camera holding
• screen of some sort
• receipt paper roll holder
• thermal printer
• receipt paper slot
• i think im veering towards a lot of customizability, thinking if I should make a switch for various