Doka Lab is a darkroom kit designed for developing black-and-white photos, born from the desire to bring back the tangible experience of physical photos in a world where everything is digital. With Doka Lab, you can easily transform digital images into physical prints while enjoying the hands-on process that evokes the nostalgia of a traditional darkroom. The kit is designed to be as eco-friendly as possible, made of 99% cardboard with only the lens in plastic, ensuring a minimal carbon footprint.

Lipo has been at Contact for three weeks and loves being surrounded by creative minds, finding value in the feedback and critiques from others with a builder’s mindset. This collaborative environment helps identify product improvements and refines the purpose behind the work.

Doka Lab is the sole personal project that Lipo is working on at the moment, but it is an idea that began seven years ago. Despite many changes since then—jobs, countries, everything—he recommitted to the project in January this year, determined to see it through. The goal is to bring the joy of creating a physical photo to people in their own home. Lipo knows that likely users will still take photos of the photos and share these on their social medias, but the goal is not to remove the use of social media, but instead to bring people the joy of having and creating their own physical photos.

For Lipo, Doka Lab represents a personal challenge—a commitment to seeing the project through to completion. He wanted to finish this project, no matter the outcome. It’s about using all the knowledge and experience he’s gained over the years in order to bring Doka Lab to life and being able to say that he gave it his all.