Japanese art museum intros $15 bookmarks made from PCBs — the PCB traces form a miniature Tokyo Metro map

The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum has added some beautiful printed circuit board (PCB) style bookmarks to its souvenir store. Available with red, white, green, and black PCBs, the bookmarks appear to be populated with the usual miasma of copper traces and tiny surface-mount components that only an electronics wizard could make any sense of. However, look a little closer and each PCB bookmark is actually a Tokyo Metro map - stretching from Ofuna Station in the west to Narita Airport in the east.

According to the museum’s official webstore (machine translated), the bookmarks were designed using “PCB‑specific CAD software.” It shows surprising dedication that a fine art or graphic designer would learn an electronics design tool for this job. Perhaps the museum found an artist & electronics engineer, a rare individual with talents that cross over these distinct realms. “Each trace is drawn by hand with a mouse, resulting in a meticulously crafted piece that blends electronic engineering with art,” explains the souvenir store blurb.

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These PCB bookmarks also differentiate themselves from the more typical offerings with their unique texture. They aren’t too textured, though. A real, fully populated PCB could make a mess of your precious books, with variable-sized and shaped surface components, and their spiky reverse, where through-hole components are fixed.

“The materials, processes, and manufacturing methods are exactly the same as those used for real circuit boards,” says the museum. “To prevent damage to books, planners, or your hands, 0.15mm of copper foil has been removed from the board’s edges.” Moreover, close inspection of the PCBs shows that they are cleverly created but don’t have any actual components on them.

So good, so sold out

Despite spotting this announcement on Sunday, January 25, when we visited the museum’s online store the next day, all these PCB-a-like bookmarks had been sold. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the Museum will have restocked.

A PCB bookmark representation of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai, is another outstanding bookmark advertised by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum store. It is also sold out, sadly, but it shows that these PCB fabrication method bookmarks don’t have to look like PCBs.

All the bookmarks we have highlighted measure 140 x 32 x 0.45mm. That’s about 6 inches long, about an inch and a quarter wide, and as slim as a circuit board.

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