Industrial Design, Innovation, Gadgets and much more...: October 2015

Ergonomic pens. Are they? Part-II

More experiments with ergonomics of pen.

Ergonomic pens. Are they? Part-I

These below are hand-drawn sketches of design concepts for experimental pens. I tried to play with shapes to see if I could find a new ergonomic approach.

Pen as our writing instrument... and one of the most ancient tools of human species. Part - IV.

Another set of pens presented to NIKE few years ago.

Pen as our writing instrument... and one of the most ancient tools of human species. Part - III.

Here are few design concepts of "sporty" looking pens for mid-price range. They were created and presented to NIKE in their headquarters in Oregon. Managers at NIKE liked them very much, but for reasons known only to them chose not to go into production. I have heard many times from people who saw these designs: "Oh, jee! Where can I buy few of these?"... Nowhere, unfortunately. These pens exist only in single prototypes and presentation boards. Though, I would love to develop them into real product, modifying a bit for some pen company.

Pen as our writing instrument... and one of the most ancient tools of human species. Part - II.

These are designs of inexpensive ball-point capped pens with TPR over-molding for decor and comfort (in grip area). TPR stands for Thermo-Plastic-Resin. It is sometimes called TPE (Thermo-Plastic-Elastomer). Common people simply call this material "rubber".

Pen as our writing instrument... and one of the most ancient tools of human species.

Ah, pen! One of the most ancient instruments in human hands (axe and knife do not count, of course). I love designing writing instruments - pens, mechanical pencils, markers... May seem like a simple and boring task - design a ballpoint pen. Yet, when we go to a store to buy office supplies, we look and carefully choose this one of the most ancient instruments - pen or pencil. We pay attention to shape, colors, balance, grip area, clicker buttons and many other features. How many of us, buying a new pen thought to ourselves:"Oh, now with this pen I will write my best story!", or "Aha, now with this pen my school study and home work will have to improve!" Yes, we use this instrument literally every day. How many other tools we use every day our whole life? Well, maybe knives, spoons and forks... And these are also coming in one or few of my future blogs, because I designed utensils too. But now attention on pens!

Introducing New Product - Bison Airlighter

What is Bison Airlighter? Most of us had a chance once here and there to set camp fire, start fireplace or wood stove going, fire a barbeque grill or smoker to prepare a favorite treat. Most of the time we use fire starting liquid for that and have to wait till open fire dies down and charcoal gets that distinct white powderish look, which indicates that we can start actual cooking.

Airlighter is a portable too which alows to get from decision of making a fire to cooking in just 3 minutes and without any starter liquid. You do not even need self-starting charcoal. All you need a just fire wood or pressed or regular charcoal and... Airlighter! It will work anywhere, anytime, provided you did not forget to charge its batteries via convenient USB port and fill its tank with butane.
Designed by Gennadi Fedorov. Atus Design, LLC.

These are little modifications to the previously posted simple stools. These designs have separate sitting surfaces added to the stool with options to have this surface attached directly to the base assembly or to a screw, which then would allow to adjust height position of sitting.

Wooden stools made from bent plywood

Simple wooden stools with tree and with four legs, designed to be made using bent plywood. Made to be stacking on top of each other to take minimum space in storage.

Saturday, October 31, 2015