See ‘n Scan: Chameleon Pen Lets You Copy Nature’s Colors

The real world is full of some of the most vibrant, beautiful colors imaginable. Artists can recreate just about all of those colors with the right tools, but what if you’re not an artist, want to sketch something quickly, or you don’t have a full set of colors with you? The Color Picker, a fabulously fanciful concept from designer Jinsun Park, could be the answer.

The pen has a color sensor on one end that, when the corresponding button is pressed, will pick up the desired color. The internal RGB (red, green and blue) inks mix to create an exact match, and the pen then draws with the color you’ve plucked right from nature. It’s just like the Photoshop “eyedropper” tool for real life.

The pen would be more precise with CMYK inks, and keeping the colors and batteries filled would be a challenge for a product like this if it ever went into production. An possible alternative would be to apply the same color-scanning ability to a tablet input device. Then artists could still create with the incredible colors of nature without being restrained by the limitations of the pen’s itty-bitty ink cartridges.