Made by NOTCOT: In Plain Sight- 02.04.15
We’re excited to launch our latest NOTlabs Experiment - the NOTCOT In Plain Sight Collection of blacked out leather retroflectors! These subtle black on black striped leather accessories turn into unmissable high visibility items when flashed (be it with a camera flash or the lights from a car). Whether you use them as a decorative accessory, safety add on, a prop to liven up flash photos… or all of the above, is up to you! The collection contains a small and large keychain and bag tag - all handmade (by us!) in Los Angeles at NOTlabs from vegetable tanned leather.
Ok launching a collection sounds far more serious than it is - what actually happened was I wanted to make something fun to celebrate 10 YEARS OF NOTCOT! … and we have been experimenting with lasers + leather (+ reflective materials)… and Shawn and I wanted new keychains and a bag tag, so we started there and ended up with designer leather retroflectors! We’ve been using them the last few weeks, meaning inevitable design tweaks leading to the final designs. I adore mine, as does Shawn, so we decided to make more to share with our friends and family! Which of course includes all of you!!!
So THANK YOU for all of your incredible support and inspiration over the last decade. You’re so awesome, we’ve discounted the price for Friends & Family (like you!) for a few days over in the STORE!. For the discount, select the Friends & Family price in the drop down before you add to cart. [UPDATE: Friends & Family deal ended 2/9/2015]
No joke these are handmade by us at NOTlabs (yes, i’m sewing them!) and will be a limited edition (of not very many, or until we move on to another exciting project!) Hope you like them! See lots of fun detail shots and animated gifs on the next page…
The full NOTCOT IPS (In Plain Sight) Collection: There’s IPS-001, a little keychain just a bit longer than the basic house key. IPS-002 is the larger keychain that is perfect for those who like something to grab and swing their keys around by. And IPS-003 is the bag tag you can hang from your purse, briefcase, backpack, or just about anything! They are all subtle black on black leather retroflectors that become super high visibility when flashed with light.
Here’s an example of it with and without flash! The iPhone flash tends to make it look a bit more golden - you’ll see below that our other camera flash makes it appear silverish… it all depends on what’s bouncing off of it! You can also see the back of IPS-003 has reflective text on the back!
IPS-001 and IPS-002 keychains are shown here with standard house keys for scale.
Both sides of IPS-003 bag tag seen with and without flash! All of the pieces are made with a single piece of leather and hand sewn to be super strong.
The IPS-003 as i’ve been using it on my purse. I have a tendency to wear a lot of black - so crossing the street at night or taking Bucky for a walk isn’t always the safest - but this is a nice way to keep it black and subtle, but still jump out at cars driving by! Same thing for walking with my keys in hand.
On details - all of the pieces have the NOTCOT logo etched in - the logo actually gets smaller as the pieces get bigger! IPS-001 keychain has it etched across the back, IPS-002 has a small logo at the rear bottom, and IPS-003 has the tiniest logo above the top stripe!
CUSTOM TAGS! For the moment, we are making special versions of IPS-003 customized with whatever you’d like on the back… up to _ letters or numbers in a single row.
How do they look in the wild? BRIGHT!
The fun part is - only the person (or camera) shining light at you sees the bright stripes! The NOTCOT IPS (In Plain Sight) Collection is a set of black leather retroflectors, which “reflects light back to its source with a minimum of scattering.”
We’ve been busy testing and lasering and sewing them up to share! I even thought about making them for our own secret society of awesome NOTCOT folks… maybe someday showing your NOTCOT IPS piece will get you a free drink, or into a special event, or… well, i’ll keep brainstorming on that for now!
Crisp idea. Good combination of a traditional material with a high tech one.
----- Carl Gustav Magnusson 05.02.15 06:57