Mianne de Vries’s Photosensitive Vase Lets You Capture Your Own Image on Its Skin

This year’s winner of the Volvo Design Awards is a tangible object that lets you capture a special experience. Known as the Capture Vase, this unique customizable container comes with a photosensitive skin that lets you print your own photograph on it, completing the design. Envisioned by Dutch designer Mianne de Vries, this stunning vessel is both functional and magical.

Mianne de Vries’s vase is beautiful and very personal. It consists of a large white container covered in a light-sensitive paint. Its packaging is a stylish black box that doubles as a pinhole camera for capturing whatever image the owner would like to print on the vase. The box’s interior is pitch black; when you open the small hole the environment projects on the vase, working like a camera obscura.

To make the photo permanent, you have to develop the vase by filling the empty packaging box with a special liquid that will fix the picture in place. Playing with the balance between high-tech and craftsmanship, this talented young designer came up with a surprising object everyone loves, including us.

See more curious crafts by Mianne de Vries here.

Photos courtesy of Lisa Klappe