Conceptual Photographer Creates Literal USB Thumb Drives for His Promo Mailer

Justin Poulsen is a conceptual photographer based in Toronto, Canada, who specializes in building physical props for his surreal photos rather than relying on digital trickery. To convey this fact for his latest promotional mailer campaign, Poulsen decided to take the idea of “thumb drives” very literally.

Here’s what Poulsen’s prospective clients received in the mail:

His portfolio photographs were contained on a custom-made USB drive that’s design to look like a severed thumb. The goal was “allowing potential clients to experience both the tactile and visual quality of my craft,” Poulsen tells us.

To create the thumb drives, Poulsen first created a mold of his thumb.

The thumbs that popped out of the mold were the correct size and shape, but they lacked detail.

So, Poulsen hand painted each one to make it look as realistic as possible.

The resulting drives were amazingly realistic (and somewhat disturbing):

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video that shows how these photo portfolio thumb drives were made:

We’re guessing Poulsen succeeded in attracting the attention of most of his promo mailer recipients.