Face.Print
Written by Kalle Pakkala on March 25, 2009.The promise of the fashion and cosmetics industry is to give the individual a freedom to “design” him or herself, to stand out of the crowd and to highlight desired characteristics. The human face is obviously the most important surface for communication. Makeup used to play a major role in sacred rites in various religions, and facial tattoos were often used to communicate social ranking or genealogy. Today, beyond the fashion, high ranking sportsmen sometimes tattoo their faces and fans are commonly carrying their clubs’ colours or emblems on their faces.
Face.Print stemmed from this culture of “designing oneself”. It is a sunshade, which, while protecting the wearer from the heat of the sun, enables the branding of one’s face with a custom motif. As a kind of temporary tattoo, the motif runs across the wearer’s face and is understandably not always visible. To give the wearer more control of his/her appearance, Face.Print has two small holes that can be used to accurately control the desired position of the silhouette: the punctures can be aligned so that one sees the sun through them, and after that, the graphics can be aligned on one’s face, without the help of any mirror.
An intuitive software, with which one can upload a custom motif and align it onto a desired place on one’s face, generates the blueprints for lasercutting and makes it a child’s play to create customised light casting Face.Print sun shields.
