P-2 OMGIFOS Black

British made pens through and through… apart from the nib. One does not make ones own nibs generally 🙂 So we use Bock, German made perfection. They are interchangeable with all other size 6 Bock nibs otherwise known as type 250. The barrel, cap, nib section, badge, carbon tube and end caps, even the slightly unusual cardboard box it arrives in are all British made.

Fundamentally, it is a small stick you write with so without departing from ergonomic constraints there is little you can do. Which is why 99% of all pen design variations are found in the ornamentation not the shape. The first Schofield fountain pen was classical in style. Quite serious with the black acrylic and silver bands – a pen designed for yesteryear, a pen made for Sir Winston Churchill. This pen, the P-2, is the opposite, and I got there quite by accident. 2001 A Space Odyssey is one of my favourite films which led me to the Stanley Kubrik exhibition in London, naturally (on design high-alert) I was most excited about the 2001 section. Taking photos of the tiniest details; control panels, graphic insignia, perforations on HAL’s speaker, latches on helmets… you get the idea. I own a set of cutlery used on the Discovery 1 by Arne Jacobsen and it has not dated at all, but the pen by Parker has and it is from studying that design that I wondered what if Stanley asked me to design a pen for the film today! What would it look like?

It had to look dynamic and have forward motion, a bit like a space ship but not obviously so, it needed a shape differentiation that was unique without being wacky. It was not to have a clip (we are off clips as only a very few of us put fountain pens in shirt pockets) and there was to be no silversmithing. HAL the ubiquitous computer AI ‘eye’ was not to feature – tempting as it was! But this was not an homage but an alignment.

The cap has a nose-cone like the Blacklamp torch and the original Onoto x Schofield Pen. It has a fin that acts to grip when unscrewing but also serves as a roll-stop. It has two flat sections on the barrel that are fluted, a deliberate tactile surface to run one’s thumb along. It has a cool gold  plated badge in the end that is a play on the original Parker pen’s coloured dots and the subtlest nod to HAL 🙂 Most explicit is the material, the colours of which fit stylistically with the film; red, black and white and some more out there, limited edition Stargate versions.

The P2 does not come in a presentation box, wouldn’t you want something useful? A light weight, slimline carbon fibre tube with colour coded ends. This way you can safely carry the pen about without extra bulk and weight. Plus it is super on point with the 2001 A Space Odyssey theme.