A set of great handy stationery designs are extremely critical for any product designer! These are the tools that help and support you through your creative process. They can either make or break your entire design process, so it’s imperative to have a collection that really lets you work easily, efficiently, and effectively. Yanko Design recommends these innovative and nifty stationery designs that every product designer must own! From a gadget that ensures you draw straight lines to a design that doubles up as a compass and a protractor, these products are sure to meet the unique needs and requirements of your creative process. You can thank us later! Enjoy.
The Constrained Ball by Gihawoo Design is one of those concepts I can easily see myself buying from a late-night infomercial. I’m not saying it’s bad but the novel approach to a simple kind of problem is endearing. Fitted with a gasket, the gadget helps you draw straight lines and indicates the length. OMG, is this the end of the ruler’s dominance?!? No, but I quite like this concept. I’m a stickler for drawing straight lines. It’s either gotta be straight and perfect or it’s a no-go for me.
Created as a cross between a Pantone shade card and a stationery set, the Pen Fan fits 8 different flat-head sketch pens in a small, easy-to-carry set. The flat pens are connected to each other, forming a neat Japanese-fan style layout that displays all 8 colors for you to pick and choose from. Each individual sketch pen is detachable too, allowing you to snap off and on pens to create a palette of your choice! Stationery-hoarders, you’ve been warned!
Outside/Inside was created to question the traditional understanding of a “vessel” and reimagine it with materials like pine needles to not only add more function but also give it a refreshing form. “What do you understand as a ‘vessel’? What image comes to mind if I tell you to describe it? Now, how far can you stretch that image? How far is too far?” asked the duo as they worked on reinterpreting the meaning through their design. Just like wild grass, it looks like the ‘vessel’ is growing from the surface it is kept on. What I love is the usage of pine needles because it is an underrated and under-explored natural material. Pine needles also bring a touch of nature inside on your shelf or desk. It also adds a poetic theme to the design as its colors, smell, and texture change over time letting you experience the ‘seasons’ of Outside/Inside.
CARBU is a compass and a protractor – so if you are a student or a designer, you know exactly how convenient it is to have tools that serve more than one purpose. The user can make multiple circles without measuring the distance of the opening of the legs with a ruler. The slim legs of the compass on the inside are clogged with discs that are integrated with low-power magnets for smooth movements. The compass has a 2 disc system for accuracy – the inner one disc shows the measurement in a 0.2cm interval and this is amplified with a second disc that magnifies it for ease of viewing. The inner transparent case has two options – you can measure with degrees (for angles and arcs) and also without degrees for simpler things. The second transparent case that has a magnifying glass shows the distance between the two legs of the compass precisely. The discs also tell you if you are in compass mode or protractor mode.
The Novus Rule is a product that prioritizes perfection and harmony over all else. It comes with a brass scale featuring a trapezoid cross-section, and a smaller, inverted trapezium wooden handle for grip. Sure, you’d wonder what makes the Novus Rule better than traditional rulers apart from its craftsmanship-appeal. Well, you see, the trapezium-shape of the brass ruler allows it to have much more tapered edges than a sheet-metal, plastic, or wooden scale. The Novus Rule exploits that, with an edge that’s as thin as 0.5mm, so your measurements practically touch the paper for better accuracy. The trapezium-shape even enhances readability, putting the numerics at an exact 28.8° angle that’s easier for you to see, and eliminates the warping that often happens when you apply pressure on regular flat metal rulers.
The Compass is a solid piece of machined stainless steel that works not just as a compass-guide, but also as a pen-stand. It has a hole at its base that you can use to place the Compass wherever you need and magnetically allows the ruler units to snap to it. Once magnetically attached, the ruler units swing freely at 360° around the base, allowing you to create circles and measure arcs nearly perfectly while achieving this feat without piercing the paper. Markings on the Compass base even let you measure degrees as you draw circular lines, giving you control and intuition, bundled together in tools that don’t change the way you make circles or lines, but just innovatively improve the process and cut the clutter, thanks to its minimal design.
A little like the tangram meets the jigsaw meets the third dimension, the Logifaces puzzle by Logideez is a nice visual and mind exercise. The puzzle comprises a series of triangles of the same size, but different heights (at each vertex), and the only rule is, “Create a form by placing the prisms next to each other to build a continuous surface”. When completed, the Logifaces forms a large triangle with an undulating surface and a nice, concrete, brutalist appeal. The puzzle can be used as a toy, or even as decor, adorning places like work desks or coffee tables.
Industrial designer Jaekyoung Oh got the idea of pepping up the way we keep office supplies without losing the actual purpose and the essence. Keep enough pencils in the grooves of the (roof meant to hold the pencils/pens) and you’ll have a whole new roofed mini house on your desk. Take that obsession further and you can actually create a small town on your desk. Sounds liberating right? Other than that you can also keep the mini house minus the thatched roof to store paper clips, important business cards, or other office essentials that are required on daily basis. So even a couple of these on your desk would be just right to get you into that productive working regime. After all, small things like these help you get in the zone, and perform at your best!
Clamp Basket by Seungwan Kang & Seonhee Shin does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin; it’s a small container that attaches to the side of the desk and allows the user to collect the rubber residue that is strewn across the work surface. A compact brush is neatly integrated into the top of the bin to ensure that every last bit of rubber is disposed of! Also featured on the top of the device is a pencil sharpener, which directly takes care of those annoying pencil shavings. Be it pencil shavings, crumbs, or even waste tissue, we think the Clamp Basket is a glam addition to every desk!
Clip Art by Present & Correct is a wonderful history lesson in paper clip design. The series features ten different paper clips from 1860 to 1934, recreated from ancient patent records. The Clip Art is a series worth collecting and admiring, especially for the way it captures how subtly different paper clips looked during the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods and possibly even how visual styles could be partially dictated by industrial production techniques.
