Contrast is remapped
Tones are redistributed for the human eye, so mid-tones stay distinct instead of turning grey.
We didn’t invent a new material: we liberated ink.
- Sixteen greys, from 0 to 15
- White pigment, negative
- Black pigment, positive
- Transparent electrode
- Pixel electrode
- Power drawn
- Zero while it holds
Ink, not light. A surface that is read, never one that shines at you.
ePaper, also called electronic ink or e-ink, is a display technology that holds an image with pigment rather than light.
How it works
Look closer. It is only ink.
One row of them.
Under each pixel, a capsule of ink: black pigments, white pigments.
A signal moves the pigments. Then they stay, with no power at all.
- A signal arrives. A new image is sent from Ginko Studio, over Wi-Fi. No cable: the frame runs on its battery.
- The ink moves. In millions of microscopic capsules, black and white pigments rise or sink. The ones that reach the glass draw the image.
- The image stays. Then everything stops. The image holds without drawing any power, until the next change. That is why one charge lasts up to three years.
Look closer: pixels, each set to one of sixteen greys.
Non-emissive by nature
Energy only when the image changes.
What you see is not light pushed towards your eyes, as it is on an LED panel. It is the light already in the room, returned by pigment that has just been rearranged in silence. The result is a surface that is soft on the eyes and holds its image from any angle, and that reads on a wall the way a framed print reads.
An emissive panel burns power every second to produce its light. ePaper works the other way around: the ink moves into place, then stays there. Power is drawn only when the image changes, and that is what makes a frame with no cable possible.
Up to 3 years
Autonomy
99.9 %
Less energy
3 hours
Full charge
Zero
Power when static
Autonomy based on typical use. It varies with the number of image changes, ambient temperature and active hours. Energy reduction compared with a 42-inch LCD display operating 12 hours a day.
Day and night
At night, it does not light up.
At midnight the image is still on the wall, held by the ink alone. With no light of its own, the frame goes dark with the rest of the room, the way a framed print does.
14:00By day, the ink returns the light of the room.
23:30By night, nothing glows. The image stays, and keeping it there costs no energy.
An honest comparison
Where each surface belongs.
ePaper is not better at everything. It is better at being quiet.
| Criterion | Framed print | LCD / OLED | Ginko ePaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light emission | None | Continuous, emissive | None, reflective |
| Power draw | None | Continuous | Only when the image changes |
| Cabling | None | Power and data | None, Wi-Fi and battery |
| Remote update | Reprint and reinstall | Yes | Yes, fleet-wide |
| Eye comfort | Paper | Glare, and always emissive | Paper-like, 180° |
| Moving image | No | Yes | No |
| Full colour | Yes | Yes | Greyscale |
| Architectural integration | Reads as a framed work | Reads as a device | Reads as a framed work |
Compare Ginko with
What we made of it
The same ink, behind real glass, in solid wood.
Ginko puts that ink in a frame a framer would recognise, adds a battery and a Wi-Fi link, and nothing else: a display that hangs like a picture and changes like a screen. Here is what is inside, and what it took.
Laying ink on a surface is an old gesture, and one of the few that changed how knowledge travels. We are extending it, and giving it the one thing it never had: the ability to change.
Inside
Eight layers,
from the glass to the back.
- 01Real glassNot acrylic: it gives the surface its depth.
- 02White matIt gives the image its rhythm.
- 03ePaper panelMillions of ink capsules, 42 inches, sixteen grey levels.
- 04Circuit boardIt wakes up, redraws the image, goes back to sleep.
- 05BatteryUp to three years without a charge.
- 06Wi-Fi moduleThe link to Ginko Studio, nothing more.
- 07Backing boardIt closes the frame at the back.
- 08Solid wood mouldingFinished by hand, it holds everything.
The invisible work
Every image is re-composed before it becomes ink.
Sixteen levels of grey are the difference between a pictogram and a photograph: the fall of light on a face, the grain of a fabric, a sky at dusk. And with no backlight, the image holds at any angle, like a print.
An image is never sent to the panel as it arrives. It is rebuilt for it.
Matter is rebuilt
Dithering spreads the pigment so the eye rebuilds gradients, grain and softness.
The panel is calibrated
Each image is corrected to the exact response curve of the panel that will show it.
The fleet agrees
The same image looks identical in a lobby in Paris and in a suite in Marrakech.
Eco-design
Wood, glass and ink.
Almost no plastic.
Made of what a framer would use: solid wood, real glass and a white mat. The most sustainable object is the one you keep. The image changes, the frame stays on the wall.
< 1 %
Plastic in the object
90 %
Recyclable
Solid wood
Frame finished by hand
Zero
Construction waste
The frames
Two formats. The same elegance.
Ginko Studio
Your walls,
run from one window.
From your desktop or from your phone, Ginko Studio turns running a fleet of frames into a simple routine.
