Panorella Turns Your 360° Photos Into Umbrellas

By now you’ve surely seen those cool-looking fish-eye lens photos on Instagram. They’re usually taken from elevated heights, or beautiful surroundings (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, try the #theta or #insta360 hashtags). These are 360-degree photos, not to be mistaken with panorama photos, that can be captured using spherical video cameras. Some can even be attached to your smartphone.

Now, despite looking cool on your social media feed, there’s really not much use for these photos. But Japanese creative agency PARTY has come up with a neat application: printing these photos onto the roof of umbrellas to make a custom, 360-degree view over your head when it rains.

Launching today, Panorella is a new service that lets you upload your own 360°photos and easily print them onto the roof of an umbrella. Each umbrella costs 14,800 yen (about $150), which is expensive by Western standards, but each are hand made at the highest quality by craftsmen in Japan. Which is why the umbrellas take about 1 month to build after your order is submitted. But once it arrives you can be certain that your umbrella will last even through the toughest storms (and you’ll have a beautiful view despite all the rain).

Don’t have your own 360°photo but love the concept? Panorella also offers a bunch of photos to choose from by professional and amateur photographers.