The Schofield P-2 pen in nickel plated aluminium, with a design based on the 2001 A Space Odyssey film.

P-2 ✦ Ally

The P-2 is Schofield’s fountain pen inspired by the film 2001 A Space Odyssey. There are four main colours; black, red and white and silver. For the blackness of space we commissioned a special acrylic with white swirls and nebula as well as diamond dust for occasional twinkle. The red is HAL’s eye, molecule chairs, cockpits and computer rooms. The white a bone, the Discovery and the ceramic finish found on so many surfaces. The silver is the aluminium ubiquitous in the film.
 

£522.00

In stock

  • Family Business
  • 2 Year Warranty
  • Secure Payments
  • Worldwide Shipping

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 – aluminium.

  • Medium width bi-colour gold and steel Bock nib
  • gold plated plated brass grip
  • aluminium with a semi-matt nickel finish
  • Carbon fibre carry tube