P-2 White

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 best 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 enamel 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.

• Medium width bi-colour Bock nib
• Gold plated plated brass grip
• White matt finish
• Carbon fibre carry tube