The pen, the designer’s, artist’s, writer’s and engineer’s best friend, and it has been this way for decades! But the humble pen has just got a significant improvement, and this is all thanks to the Mark One.
This incredibly sleek pen takes minimal design to a new level; in a feat of engineering the body of the Mark One is completely seamless, this is emphasized by the absence of logos and excess ornamentation. The black and white color options come from the use of Cerakote, an extremely durable ceramic polymer coating, this allows the pen to take any of the daily abuse that may come its way!
It’s fair to say that, no matter how annoying it is, we all can’t stop ourselves from clicking pens, the Mark One makes this even harder to resist due to its custom, all-metal click mechanism. But don’t worry, if people give you strange looks I’m sure it’s just because they are jealous of your new pen!
Designers: Tom Gerhardt & Dan Provost of Studio Neat
Minimal
Their design goal from the beginning was to design a pen that was both minimal and beautiful. Mark One has a completely seamless (literally) design, with no excess ornamentation or logo. This seamless design was quite an engineering feat, and involved designing a custom mechanism that can screw in from the back. The pen comes in two colors: black or white, which both have a slightly textured, matte finish. The metal plated nocks provide a nice little accent to each. They wanted the pen to be sophisticated without looking overly tactical or masculine.
Durable
It was also important for them to make something long lasting. Mark One is incredibly durable. It is made entirely out of metal; even the custom click mechanism is metal (more on that below). The pen is coated with Cerakote, which is an extremely durable ceramic-polymer coating. It gives the pen a really nice, matte feel. This pen should last a lifetime.
Retractable
They decided early on that they wanted their pen to be a retractable click pen, but getting there was another story. There are many off-the-shelf click mechanisms they could have used, but none of them were quite right for what they wanted, so naturally, they started making their own mechanism. It is made entirely out of metal and, as far as they know, it is the only all-metal mechanism on the market that has an actual “click” action. It’s extremely satisfying. They are quite proud of it!
