Joto - the first connected display that draws with a pen.

About this project

The first connected display that draws with a pen. It is designed to be hung on your wall like a picture frame. Joto is not another screen, quite the opposite, it turns pictures and words from your screen into pen and ink drawings.

As soon as you send something to it, Joto's pen starts to move. It has an eraser and a dock too, so the pen doesn’t dry out and when you are ready for something new, it refreshes the surface and prepares itself for your next Jot.

People say there’s something about the way Joto jots live. There's something that mesmerises, excites and inspires. It seems some things in life are just better off screen! 

Using the Joto app, on a computer or mobile device, you can discover, create and share jots. These are some ways you can turn images and text into beautiful ink drawings and make the most of Joto.

Joto takes requests, sketching everything from works of art to love notes, to-do lists to puzzles. We believe Joto is as versatile as its users are creative. Here are some of our favourite uses:

A sketch of Hockney for when you’re hosting a summer BBQ. Klimt's The Kiss for romancing. And Dogs Playing Poker for a boys’ night in. Obviously. 

Waking up to a new piece of art every day now is possible. To celebrate the launch of Joto we're releasing something special: 365 days of Art. Like the sound of it? Find out more below!  

Hang Joto in the kitchen and it’s a family to-do-list. Pop it up in a cafe and it's an updatable menu. Or use it in the workplace and it’s a nifty noticeboard. Joto is also easy to update, so you can schedule different content throughout the day to suits your needs. 

Quotations, tweets, headlines, happy birthdays and “Hello, how are you?”s. Joto can handle them all. Jot-to-Jot Messaging is even enabled, allowing you to scribble on your friend’s wall from anywhere in the world.  

   

An ever-growing community of design enthusiasts, artists, illustrators, makers and hackers are excited to see how Joto will change the way we communicate and display the things we love. 

We’re concentrating on getting the hardware right first, so we can build a community of users that love Joto.

We've made sure that Joto's software has been built so it can integrate with your favourite apps like Twitter, Spotify and Slack.

For all you makers and tinkerers, the accompanying Joto app has also been designed to allow further integrations and connections. We'll be releasing a public API and also making key parts of the software available and open so that you can experiment outside our cloud platform. We want you to be free to come up with as many amazing and crazy ways to use Joto as possible. We've even got it up and running with Node-RED!

   

It turns out people love Joto. We were over the moon when Joto was announced as Winner of the Beazley Design of the Year Public Vote at the Design Museum in February. 

Joto was the public's favourite over social and visitors to the museum, now we can’t wait for you all to be part of the Joto movement and see what would you jot! 

Joto is made up of a pen, an eraser, a board and some sleek robotics: the key parts are a perfect balance of form and function; the surface is lightweight and wipe-clean, and the pen and eraser attachment is held and manoeuvred via a mechanical arm. The whole thing is controlled via the Joto app. 

  

  

To celebrate the launch of Joto on Kickstarter, we’re excited to announce something we call 365 days of Art. You can get your Joto with 365 unique pieces art, each created by a top illustrator. That’s a brand new, inspirational image on your wall, every day, for a year.  

We're honoured to have artists from around the world excited about being part of 365 Days of Art. Just some of the illustrators that will be producing artwork for Joto include Anthony Burrill, Supermundane, Ben the Illustrator, Will Scobie, Mr. Bingo, Jon Burgerman, Quibe, Kaloian Toshev, Jordan Metcalf, JARD Design, Salventius, Sneaky Raccoon, Ben Johnston and Thomas Hedger.

We have spent a year at the Central Research Laboratory in London. One of the UK's first hardware incubators. They have helped us develop both the hardware and our business with a programme of mentorship and learning.

We knew Joto had to be special and look beautiful enough to hang on your wall. We didn’t want complicated robotics scaring away your guests. We’ve gone through many design iterations and prototypes to get our close to prototype working. 

We’ve been working closely with our manufacturers in Shenzhen, ironing out any issues we may face in manufacturing so that when we push the green button everything will run as smoothly as possible.

Our first prototype was part of the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum of London, and it ended up being one of the winners voted by the public.

We’ve prototyped, prototyped and prototyped some more and we can’t wait to start manufacturing Joto so people can get their hands on it. 

  

We’ve taken all the learning and expertise we’ve developed over the last 3 years and put it into creating Joto. 

It's been an amazing journey to bring this product all the way till here and see the Joto community growing. Kickstarter is a milestone to validate the product and fund its production.

To make all this a reality, we need your help. We are confident that with a successful Kickstarter we can bring this product to life. 

  

Joto is the next generation drawing machine out of Those’s studio. One of the very first prototypes Barney ever made using chopsticks, string and anything else he could find lying around the home.

The Woodpecker – Proof of concept.

The first product was called Woodpecker and was designed to bring retail windows and public spaces to life. It caught everyone's attention, even the labs at the advertising agency Ogilvy described it as “the year’s most innovative retail product”. 

Buy this unique lightweight drawing frame for your shop, exhibition or foyer. 

This is the only time we've sold our Woodpecker drawing machine. Customised to fit your space – up to 2m x 2m.

   

We are a London-based Design Studio called Those. We are on a mission to connect the digital world to the real world, not through a screen, but through pen and ink. We’re big pen fans.

Jim Rhodes is a technologist with a background in web development, graphic design & engineering, that has worked for clients including WeFarm, Dior, Universal Music and the Maker Library Network. He founded Those in order to explore the use of new technologies in design.

Barney Mason is a product desginer that has worked on projects for Lego, Tomy, Hasbro and Vivid Imaginations. He has developed a unique knowledge of 3D printing for product design and has worked alongside Faberdashery showcasing their amazing 3D printing materials.

Carmen Domingo is Joto’s communications lead, looking to create great content and community around this innovative product. Previously, she worked in PR agencies, developing strategic communication for a global client list. Her experience in bringing creativity to traditional approaches helped further her passion for visual communication, and more specifically, graphic design.

We’ve had some amazing people work with us along the way and we’ve built a team of consultants and advisors that have helped us bring Joto to life. 

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has helped us along the way. In particular Fred Deakin for the music used in the video, Tristan Mackay for his help with the sound recording, and these guys for helping with all the amazing imagery...

We are aiming to be shipping the first batch of Jotos by Christmas this year, with the rest following in early 2018. 

We've been working hard with our manufacturers to make sure everything is in place ready to go after our Kickstarter campaign.