Every so often a product comes along that just makes sense, because it solves a problem you might not have known you had.Putting together a collage frame can be incredibly creative, but at the same time it can also be cumbersome and time-consuming. Between cutting pictures into perfect squares or circles, and dealing with tape dispensers, a lot of the fun is drained away by the process.
Now, Kodak has come up with a great solution that should not only help make collage frame organization easier, but it will probably help sell more frames and mats, too.
“We started walking around stores, discussing how photos can be integrated into people’s lives and how they use them today,” said Kim Hajec, Kodak’s worldwide marketing programs manager for kiosks and the patent holder on the system. “When we walked into the framing aisle, I picked up one of those multi-hole collage frames, and remembered how frustrating they could be. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could just scan the frame at the kiosk, and have the kiosk do all the work for you, from cropping and zooming to positioning, and then have the images printed on one page to put into the frame?’ That’s how the PYNK system was born.”
The Kodak PYNK system integrates a specific collage frame or mat with the Kodak kiosk through bar codes. When a customer scans the frame’s bar code into the kiosk’s scanner, the kiosk’s software recognizes the frame, and the specific pattern of the mat within the frame. It then enables customers to organize their photos on the kiosk into the specific shapes, and prints out a single sheet that fits right into the back of the frame.
According to Hajec, the system is a natural for Kodak. “When we started defining the product, and putting it through consumer research, it was so apparent that this is what Kodak does—takes something that might be a little difficult for consumers to do, and uses technology in a very smart way to make it easier.
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