So when did you know this was going to be a book? Was there a moment where you said to yourself, 'Well, this is happening'? It's a history that's both a vastly underappreciated American success story and a cautionary tale for other booming tech companies-most notably a certain Cupertino-based operation called Apple.īonanos talked to The Atlantic about Instant, as well as about Polaroid's role in art, its special way of bringing people together (in more ways than one), and its unmistakable fingerprints on today's tech industry. In his new book Instant: The Story of Polaroid, released this week, author Christopher Bonanos illuminates the rise and fall of Polaroid. But Polaroid film, with its white-framed, kinda-blurry instant pictures, managed to first represent the bright future of technology and then become a beloved, retro-chic relic of the past.
It's rare for any product to be cool twice. © Bill Ray Princeton Architectural Press / Danny Kim William Wegman Studios Princeton Architectural Press / The Impossible Project / Bradley Laurent
