Pencil of Nature

Pencil of Nature. An entire universe of creation, from one studio.

An entire universe of creation. One studio.

37 works of design, code, writing, film and sound. Open them, play them, read them, then tell us what you are making.

Walk the collection

In the letters: Impossible Rooms.Pencil of Nature, a creative studio.
A door standing on a salt flat at dusk, with night sky through its frame.Impossible RoomsFive surreal interiors and landscapes, each rendered for thousands of light paths per pixel.PN.26.001. Print series.
Brand book cover: a square perfume bottle by a rainy window with the Ondée lockup.Maison OndéeAn identity for a Paris perfumer that bottles one thing: rain, at five different weights.PN.26.002. Logo files, Brand book PDF.
Four figures in sailcloth stand far apart on a mudflat.TarpaulinA fashion collection cut from sailcloth, shown on an empty tidal mudflat. Clothes for standing in weather.PN.26.004. Lookbook, Imagery.
The Moth-8, a cream pocket synthesizer with an amber scope and four knobs.Moth-8A product page where the product is real: a playable eight-voice synthesizer that runs in the browser.PN.26.003. Working instrument, Product page.
A container ship shedding containers into a heavy sea.Tide TablesSix editorial illustrations printed on a risograph press that exists only as code.PN.26.005. Illustration series, Print process code.
Storyboard: one old woman at a lit desk in an empty newsroom.The ProofreaderA short film from script to animatic. On a newspaper's last night, the machine has made no errors, so the last proofreader adds one.PN.26.006. Screenplay PDF, Storyboards.
A dense dark flock folding across a dusk sky.MurmurationA flock of 160,000 birds at dusk, simulated on your graphics card. You are the falcon.PN.26.007. Interactive simulation.
A tall white amphora with a long shadow.Fornace OttaviaA luxury storefront for a Faenza kiln that fires eight times a year and closes when the shelf is empty.PN.26.009. Working website, Product imagery.
A low concrete and larch house on a headland at blue hour, with one glowing window.House for a Retired KeeperA house for someone who spent a working life in a lighthouse, sunk into a headland, with one eight-metre window and a stair that still climbs to a lamp room.PN.26.011. Visualisations, Measured drawings.

Twelve ways into the collection

The work is grouped by what it took to make it. A single piece can belong to several rooms.

Some of this you can pick up and use.

24 of the works run in your browser. There is a synthesizer you can play, a neural network that trains while you watch, and a path tracer that keeps getting truer for as long as you stay.

Open the playgroundEverything interactive

In 1844, a book of pictures gave this studio its name.

William Henry Fox Talbot told readers of The Pencil of Nature that its plates were “impressed by the agency of Light.” Some had taken them for engravings. It was a new kind of picture, and it made people look twice.

That is still the job. A brand, a film or a website should make people look twice. If you have something that deserves a second look, we would like to hear about it.

Tell us about your project