TL:DR - I made a cool pen and you should go and buy it.
If you make anything creative, you’ll probably already know that getting something right first try is pretty unusual. My experience has been that most of the work I do in a project is re-doing or refining something I didn’t get quite right in the first version. There’s value in getting an imperfect first version into existence as it gets everything in motion, and momentum is important1.
Back at the end of 2014, I was in a bit of a rut with my drawing. I’d been trying to ignore all the advice about there being no magic pens that would fix my drawing, and I was on a quest to find a magical pen2.
I was working at a university at the time, and one of the workshops I did with the students was making drawing tools - mostly folded nib dip pens attached with masking tape to a pencil. I really liked making those pens with the students, they make unpredictable and dynamic lines, and are easy to adjust if there’s something you want to change. I remember making a particularly enjoyable (yet not particularly durable) pen from a biscuit tin, a stick and some gaffa tape.
Let me warn you now - this post has a lot of pictures of my hands in them, and I am never going to get work as a hand model. They look like raw beef sausages covered in cornflakes. Like pepperoni that’s been left in a greasy puddle. Like gnarled driftwood thrown down a mine shaft.
In the spirit of curiosity, I tried to make a version that was slightly more durable. I made it from some brass corner section, a stick and some Sugru3 with a pair of pliers, a metal file and a lot of sandpaper. I like working with brass - it’s easy to work with and nice to look at4.
It was really fun to draw with, and got me thinking about the way that I had been using lines in my drawing. I’ve always wanted a feeling of spontaneity in my drawings, and having a drawing tool that was more unpredictable compared to what I had been used to drawing with really helped.
This kind of nib can give a huge variety of line weights and qualities, from about 6mm wide to less than a millimetre. It can draw incredibly straight lines as well as textural organic lines. It’s a lot of fun to draw/write with.
I made a different version5 from brass tube in about 2015 that was a big step forward. It was easier to clean6; huge for a drawing tool you want to use more than a few times.
Looking at these now, they feel remarkably unrefined, and while they all had interesting characteristics, . I smoothed off some of the rough corners and sold a bunch. A while later, I started experimenting with trying to make a fountain pen version of it.
I think the fountain pen versions were a mixed success. While they were a little more user-friendly than the dip versions, they were technically far more difficult to produce consistently. I learned a lot about the surface tension of fluids, fountain pen feeds, consistent ink flow and streamlining productions. I started 3d printing7 jigs and guides to try to get some consistency into the way these things were produced.
I experimented a lot with different designs to get the fountain pen version working really well. I got a couple of versions that were pretty good, but prohibitively complex to make myself8.
I accidentally managed to gash my finger open across the joint with a razor blade9 while making them. Here’s the ‘before-I-sliced-up-my-finger’ picture; (note the excess of ink all over the place)
and here’s the ‘long-after-it-has-healed’ picture which shows the (surprisingly difficult to photograph10) accidental knuckle tattoo I now have. There is a ‘directly-after-it-happened’ photograph too, but it’s not nice. I’ll keep that one to myself11.
I got really busy around 2017 with my actual job, so put making pens to one side for a while. I had a vague idea that there was some improvement I could make to this that would be really good, but like a word on the tip of your tongue, I couldn’t quite grasp it.
Fast forward to mid-2021. I’d been playing about, tinkering with the design of the pen, and came upon the idea of introducing a piston to the inside of the pen12. I made a few prototypes, some of which were abject failures, and some which were fairly promising. I settled on a design that used different diameters of brass tube and a (very particularly sized) stainless steel spring to make a little pump that sucked ink up into the interior of the pen when you pressed it with your thumb13.
I’m really pleased with how this works, looks and feels in my hand. I’m also really pleased with the simplicity of it, considering the complexity that goes into making it.
I went to a Dieter Rams exhibition years ago14, and while I quite like the Dieter Rams aesthetic and enjoyed the exhibition, I remember taking special note of his ten principles of good design15.
In brief -
Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design makes a product understandable
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally-friendly
Good design is as little design as possible
With this latest version of the pen, I’ve tried to work this thinking into the way that it functions in terms of intuition, durability, and simplicity, but also in terms of trying to be more environmentally aware. I’m generally quite unhappy with the amount of plastics in pens, so avoiding plastic altogether is a good feeling.
The last of the Rams principles about good design being as little design as possible, and for me, it’s about as little visible design as possible. This project has taken the better part of a decade and uncountable hours to refine it to a point that it feels like the most fundamental version of itself.
I’ve got these on sale on my store at the moment. I’m not sure how long for - it probably depends on how many people want one. As fun as it is to make hundreds of pens by hand, I do have a family and other jobs to do as well.
Seriously - try getting back into a project after a break.
Spoilers - there are no magic pens.
If you don’t know Surgu, it’s a kind of mouldable rubber that is one of those ‘fix anything’ materials. It’s pretty great.
It’s also toxic if you inhale it. Ask me about it some time.
Well, actually a BUNCH of different versions, trying out different curves, lengths, production methods. A BUNCH.
You can blow excess ink out of it with your mouth or run water through it pretty easily.
Part of the fun of something like this is getting to try out new stuff and play with new tools.
There’s a few of them out there in the wild that I sent to people to test.
I use a razor blade in part of the production process, I didn’t just gash my finger open for the heck of it.
It’s frustrating that it doesn’t photograph very well. It looks a bit lame on screen. In person though, oh, that’s where it really turns heads. Very striking.
Ask me about it and I’ll get a photo out before you finish talking.
Don’t know why but the idea came to me while I was on a boat in the mediterranean.
It also makes a pretty great fiddle-toy.
I just looked it up, and it was in 2009 at the Design Museum in London.
Not particularly special in retrospect, considering it took me from 2009 until 2021 to actually absorb that information and put it into practice.
The blade that you made is one of my favorite drawing tools! I'm going to try to snatch one of these new pens up ASAP!