Samsung's Touchable Ink turns home printers into braille printers — 3 Spikes Grand Prix

Visually impaired people are about 1% of Thailand's population, but braille embossers cost around US$15,000, must be imported, and braille books are scarce. JWT Bangkok, which had worked on eye-care causes for over a decade, wanted to put reading material within reach without asking anyone to buy new hardware.

Keep the home printer, change only the ink: heat-reactive braille that rises when warmed, so blind readers print their own material at home.

The agency spent about a year and a half testing with chemistry, polymer and printing specialists to develop an ink — embossing powder mixed with standard ink — that prints on ordinary home printers and rises into readable braille when warmed with a hair dryer or microwave. Samsung backed the project at the first pitch, with the Thailand Association of the Blind helping shape it.

Cannes 2016 gave it six Lions, including a Product Design Gold; Spikes Asia 2016 gave it three Grand Prix (Design, Healthcare, Innovation); ADFEST 2017 added the Grande Direct Lotus — and the ink let blind people print letters, study material and books at home instead of paying for imported embossers.

There are about 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and in Thailand they are roughly 1% of the population. Braille is their main route to reading, but braille embossers cost around US$15,000, are imported, and printed material is scarce — so most households simply do without. JWT Bangkok had spent over a decade on eye-care and vision campaigns before deciding the real problem was access.

The team's eureka was to leave the printer alone and change the ink: a mix of embossing powder and standard ink that prints on ordinary home printers and rises into tactile braille when warmed with a hair dryer or microwave. About a year and a half of tests with chemistry, polymer and printing specialists produced a stable prototype, pitched to Samsung — which supported it at the first presentation — and developed with the Thailand Association of the Blind.

The work collected six Lions at Cannes 2016, including a Product Design Gold, three Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2016 (Design, Healthcare, Innovation) and ADFEST 2017's Grande Direct Lotus. It let blind people print letters, study material and books at home, with the team's stated goal of eventually making the ink available worldwide.

It changed the material instead of the machine, so the solution worked with hardware people already own.

It started from interviews with the blind community, making the end user a co-creator rather than a target.

It turned a decade of agency experience in eye-care causes into a concrete product, not another campaign.

It treated accessibility as an engineering problem with a household-scale answer, which is why juries across Design, Healthcare and Innovation all recognised it.

When a problem looks like expensive hardware, question the assumption: the fix may be a change in material, not machine — and an agency can invent a product, not just advertise one.

The prototype was stable enough to win awards but not yet on sale; JWT Bangkok and Samsung said they would keep developing it to bring a finished product to market, in Thailand first and then worldwide. Inside the agency, CCO Satit Jantawiwat described the project as proof that JWT was moving 'from being just a communication expert to becoming the real solution pioneer'. Touchable Ink also became a reference point for agency-created products and for accessibility work in Asia, frequently cited in later award and innovation coverage.