For keen fans eager to dig deeper into the history, the book comprises images that give an insight into manufacturing, advertising and the evolution of the camera range over the years. Walking around the beautiful space with huge Polaroid photo enlargements covering the walls, and the legendary SX70 in my hands for the first time, I could immediately feel the significance of what was on display—even though I knew nearly nothing about it back then. I believe the reason why the Polaroid brand managed to resonate so deeply with people is how the company managed to connect what it did to fundamentally human values. Brimming with all the warmth and nostalgia of a family album, this ode to the instant camera presents hundreds of images from the Polaroid Corporation’s own collection.

Instead, I’d love to share the parts of the story that captured the hearts and minds of myself and our new team at Polaroid: the reason we continue to work hard at Polaroid now, eighty-three years after the company was founded. The Polaroid Book dives into these archives, paying tribute to a medium that continues to defy the digital age. The company’s brand and products permeated pop culture, and nearly fifty years after the invention of this iconic instant photo format it is still recognized, cherished, and used by millions of people around the world. They were sitting at home with no pictures to look at as a camera like this (and all cameras made at the time) required developing the pictures in a darkroom lab, a process that takes at least a few days and lots of specialized chemistry and equipment.To make this work, they would need to revolutionize the chemistry inside the film to make it manufacturable at a lower scale, and within today’s environmental regulations. Land’s first big breakthrough invention was the thin sheet polarizer: a core technology that is used to this very day in LCD screens, sunglasses, and countless other applications. He would often sleep in his lab to keep working on projects that were “manifestly important and nearly impossible,” as he himself put it. The Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest portfolio of Polaroid images in the world. Essays by both Smolokowski and Steve Crist also offer a refreshing perspective on the challenges facing the company as time went on, including Edwin Land’s failed attempt to carry his inventive spirit over to the world of instant video capture, which essentially meant he was squeezed out of the company in the early 80s.

The essays also chart more recent business crises, namely the demise in the early 2000s and the subsequent launch of the Impossible Project, a Netherlands-based group helmed by Smolokowski that successfully strived to save Polaroid. Founded by former Daft Punk manager Pedro Winter in 2003, the legendary French record label is this year celebrating two decades of electronic music at its finest. We love instant photography; it’s still the heart and soul of the brand, and we have big plans for it for years to come. He was relentless in his pursuit of answering questions and inventing ways the world could be better.This idea of business being at the intersection of art and science became a guiding north star for Polaroid - a star we still look toward today. At the same time, Polaroid the brand lived on as strong as ever, with new ownership developing a successful licensing program.