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Function in Our Time
Classic design and innovation have not left the world. Thank goodness.
It is sometimes difficult to find currently-manufactured objects analogous in quality and design to items in our vintage collection. Designers and manufacturers are apt to cut corners on the way from a product's inception to its arrival in shops, and who can blame them? Economics and scale dictate that cheaper is better. If using lower-quality materials or less-precise processes shaves a few pennies off the cost of production, it's difficult to argue against management's desire to maximize profit and the competitive edge of cheap.
Inexpensive need not be cheap, however, and well-designed need not be costly. We've recently added several products that fit our intersecting requirements of function and good design. Here are four of our favorites:
Book Darts
Compact, elegant, Book Darts mark the exact line on the page where you stopped reading. Post-It™ Notes leave a corrosive residue, and dog-earing creases the corner; these pagemarkers are made of non-staining phosphor bronze that securely grip but will not damage the page.
Camping Tool
This camping tool has 8 functions: can opener, bottle opener, knife, fork, spoon, holepunch, keychain, and corkscrew. If you open the can opener and the fork, the halves separate, and naturally, the knife and spoon are paired. Enjoying spaghetti or steak around the campfire was never this easy.
Ergonomic Ballpoint Pen
The Yoropen was designed by Mr. Bao-Shen Liu of Taiwan in response to problems caused by traditional straight-barrel pens. These include:
- strained hands, due to lack of barrel support
- poor posture, from leaning to see what is being written
- difficulty seeing, from a tendency to grip the pen too low
- left-handers smudge, and have a more difficult time seeing what they've written
These problems are often amplified in children, and the Yoropen was designed to address these problems. The shoulder allows the pen to be gripped with less pressure and sets the hand back from the page and written line, increasing visual space. Also, the grip rotates, allowing left- and right-handed writers to enjoy their preferred grips. These features combine for a painless writing experience.
Sigg™ Traveler
The 0.6L Sigg Traveler is often compared to World War II-era fuel canisters, but its design and use by the Swiss army as a water bottle dates from the 1940's, too. Functional and elegant, they're extruded from a single piece of aluminum, allowing for a seamless exterior. The interior of the bottle has a water-based coating that is taste-neutral and hygienic, keeping your water or other beverage pure. The traveler has a ring top, for use with carabiners and other hooks, allowing easy transportation and access during hiking trips and outings around town.
These, and several other items including a Stovetop Espresso Pot, Stainless Steel Sponge Caddy, Disposable Fountain Pen, and the Rub Away, have recently joined the many other items available in our store. We invite you to explore them all, taking reassurance from the fact that there are manufacturers and designers still making high-quality products that are both aesthetically-pleasing and practical.
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