process

What will eventually emerge from these models is a penholder. When it is finished, it will stick to the work wall with a magnet. The container provides storage space for writing utensils.

The product can be used either as a tool on the work wall or as an accessory on the desk. The cup is eventually meant to hold wipeable marker pens at large conferences and seminars as well as in ordinary offices. Like any design, this one begins with assertions. What you need is a feel for the object. An understanding of the conditions. An inkling of what it ultimately might become. The concrete goal emerges in the process. In an ideal case, the process clarifies the goal. Full of ambiguities, full of anticipations, full of aspirations. The crucial developments take place here. In that moment when the idea tips over into the material world. In that moment when the idea can finally be tested. In that moment when the idea begins to take shape. The challenge is to stay with it and to lead it in the right direction. The objects in grey carton illustrate that stage. They are a reflection of that process. Somewhere between sketch and product. These can be some of the best moments in the studio.

The pen cup is both a tool and an accessory. As a tool it has its function in collaborative processes. Here it serves as a penholder on the work wall of the Moving Walls. That is what it was developed for. The pen cup has two main customers. On the one hand the Swiss company Moving Walls, on the other hand the American company Idea Paint. Moving Walls is the producer of the work wall, while Idea Paint develops paint for whiteboards. This situation led to the idea of a dual use for the cups. In its second function the pen cup becomes a desk accessory. In that case the cup attaches to its counterpart with magnets. Thus the cups form containers for writing utensils and other items that are typically found on a desk. In terms of typology, they combine the cylindrical aspect of a quiver with a flat surface. Each cup attaches either to another cup or to the work wall.

product