A new app will let you build your own museum-worthy archive out of everyday objects and bring it with you everywhere you go.
Archiv is the brainchild of graphic designer David McGillivray. The app, which is currently in beta (potential testers can join the waitlist here), functions as a “collection system for organizing and identifying the physical world,” according to McGillivray.
Users can take photos of anything they encounter—from statues to fire hydrants and furniture—and Archiv will convert them into crisp, aesthetically pleasing images, complete with a brief description of what they are and where they came from. Once a user has built out their backlog, they can share their findings with friends and begin to discuss patterns in their own observations.
“The app really came from a desire to engage with the physical world more deeply, rather than retreat further into the digital one,” McGillivray says. “I’m interested in digital tools when they can add a layer to the physical world and help us notice or understand it better.”
In practice, Archiv functions like a mindfulness exercise for design-minded people who want a habit that helps them remember the whimsy in the mundane.
An app that makes you pay more attention to the real world
The concept for Archiv started with rocks.
“I was thinking it would be fun to have a digital rock collection where, if I found an interesting rock while I was out walking my dog, I could take a photo of it, save it to a collection, and learn what kind of rock it was, where it came from, how old it might be, things like that,” McGillivray recalls. “Over the course of an afternoon, I started thinking, Well, why just rocks? You could do the same thing with art, furniture, plants, almost anything.”
That’s exactly how he built Archiv to function. When users run an image through the app, it taps Google’s AI image generation technology to re-render the photo—correcting for perspective, lighting, background, visual noise, and the details of the object itself—until it resembles an actual archival image. The AI software will also generate a few key details about the object, including its name, what it is, and when it was photographed and archived by the user.
The app’s beta version includes most of the original features McGillivray had in mind, including an automatic sorting system that places items into bite-size categories (like “Infrastructure” and “Design Objects,” for example), as well as a sharing functionality that lets users follow their friends. His current focus is patching any bugs that appear as users begin to test the app. In the future, he’s interested in adding 3D-rendering capabilities and finding richer ways for Archiv to interpret users’ collections, like by noticing patterns in what they collect.
In early testing, McGillivray says, he’s noticed that the app is allowing users (including himself) to pay more attention to the world around them. It’s a digital tool that’s meant to enhance the physical world, rather than distracting from it.
“Something you saw in a gallery, a shop, on a walk, or in someone’s house doesn’t have to disappear from your memory. It becomes part of a collection you can return to,” McGillivray says. “I like the idea that collecting can be a way of thinking about what you notice and what you value. Archiv makes that process incredibly easy, but hopefully also encourages people to look at the physical world around them with a little more curiosity.”