Sunday, June 21, 2009

Art of Industrial Design



Industrial design, as an applied art category, generally conjures up images of mass-produced items like kitchen blenders, Vespa motor scooters, or even the Apple iPhone. Yet, there are other items that convey a sense of practical, simple engineered elegance. Lamy pens, for instance, convey a design engineer aesthetic and appear to be constructed of refined materials found in a machine shop or foundry floor. They have a well-functioning, well-oiled mechanical look, which is to say they look industrial cool. Black matte, nickel palladium, gunmetal, and platinum plated. Based in Germany, Lamy engineers and manufactures ballpoint pens, rollerballs, mechanical pencils and fountain pens. The industrial art look is also found in handmade, custom titanium rings from Zoe & Doyle. Even though titanium isn’t a typical, traditional jewelry metal, it just sounds cool to say out loud. “Yeah, we originally wanted kryptonite wedding bands, but then we saw these titanium beauties and knew they were us.” I especially like the titanium rings that are lined with rosewood or polished anodized royal blue.

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