When we think of rulers, we think of thin, rectangular-shaped measuring instruments that are straight-laced and without any frills. After all, you just need it to tell you how short or long an object is so there doesn’t really need to be any sort of design innovation to it. But of course if you’re interested in seeing creative reinterpretations of regular, every day objects, there are a lot of designers out there who experiment and push the boundaries of what an object should look like. Yes, even the straightforward ruler can be experimented with and we get some interesting product results.
Designer: Rick Salafia
This line of rulers called Instruments plays around with what this measuring object can look like. The designer used various shapes to recreate a ruler, with some having concave or bowed edges, coils, and even fragmented parts. This resulted in some pretty interesting rulers that are more asymmetrical, which is somehow ironic for something that we use to tell us the exact measurement of an object. There are semi-circular objects, connected puzzle pieces, things that look like abstract fishes, shells, stars, a scythe, and other varied objects.
What these things have in common is that they’re all made of aluminum, just like a lot of regular rulers. And since they’re still going to be used to measure things, each item in the collection still has those individual inked lines with the numbers and we assume that they are the regular metric system measurements. There are some though that have the lines but don’t have the numbers so you may have to take the extra step of counting the lines if you really need to know how long something is.
The Instruments look interesting and a good addition to your desk especially if you’re into the aluminum aesthetic. What I’m not too sure though is the practicality of using such unusual shaped objects especially if you’re aiming for accuracy when measuring something. But if you’re looking for decorative instruments that can occasionally be used as rulers, then these are things that you can consider adding to your collection.
