> A pen that produces faint, smudged lines, encouraging ambiguity and reflection rather than bold certainty.
I dislike being this negative. Given these are prestigious awards I was expecting higher standards. Apart from the death-grip in the photo which makes me wince for the poor pen, this entry unfortunately shows the pretentiousness of the whole thing. Artists (drawing and painting kind) have been using broad felt markers for as long as they’ve been around as part of a rough-in specifically because it leaves enough ambiguity where the imagination can fill in the details, allowing them to move forward through a concept without committing to any specific idea (see Syd Mead, Scott Robertson, and so on). This is an actual part of the work, not a stationary that a salaryman uses for some profound moment of reflection.
A pen that produces faint, smudged lines, encouraging ambiguity and reflection rather than bold certainty."
This reminds me of the visual design choice in the Grady booch object-oriented design methodology.
During analysis, object classes looked like vaguely circular clouds. During design, classes had square boxes.
He explained that analysis is vague and fuzzy and you shouldn't try to be precise and crisp because that's the stage about which you're dealing with the real world and you know less than you think.
He found it sad that people started producing templates for the object clouds so that they would be precisely unboxed.
Perhaps. This is the last paragraph from the main award:
> It’s a design that sits between mass production and personalization, reflecting a world where individuality matters more than ever. Rather than buying a notebook, you complete it—turning a passive object into an active, personal process.
This is a translation via translate.kagi.com from "LinkedIn speak" to English:
> It’s a way to charge people for the privilege of assembling their own office supplies under the guise of "individuality." You aren't just buying a notebook; you're paying for the chore of finishing it so you can feel like you've had a "personal process" instead of just buying a damn notebook.
Seems accurate; then again, I also own a nice notebook and a fountain pen and I enjoy using them, even if this is just me feeling like I have a personal process.
> Traditional planners impose rigid boxes and neatly separated days. Gradience Diary rejects that structure entirely.
> Using a soft gradient instead of lines, it allows users to expand or shrink their writing space depending on their schedule. Tasks can flow across days naturally, mirroring how time actually feels—fluid, uneven, and continuous.
That being said, the white text on light gray background feels more like pretentious design than actual useful design.
I was forced to consider the possibility of this being a collection of late entries in an April Fools contest:
A pen that doesn't work properly.
A notepad you have to make yourself.
Grid paper with lines missing.
A device making books hard to read.
A paper stubby holder.
A calendar, but it's difficult to tell the date.
Maybe it is satire. It reads like confected pseudo-intellectual slop. Perhaps it merely demonstrates that the Japanese can have terrible ideas just like the rest of us.
pens with different weights sounds like a nice art installation
colored edges notebooks is probably a product I'd buy
bookmark with variable transparency looks like a cool thing you buy/gift that's eventually realized to be totally impractical (but it was probably worth it for a bit)
and origami packing looks cool, but not something anyone would even think of using outside Japan/east Asia because it's a culture thing
the rest I don't understand and don't like (also... last one is simply a pen with no gimmick at all? eh?)
I've been looking and, like I said.. tiresome game! I could tell some differences but, going through the archives, i ended up just enjoying the old posts lol
> A pen that produces faint, smudged lines, encouraging ambiguity and reflection rather than bold certainty.
I dislike being this negative. Given these are prestigious awards I was expecting higher standards. Apart from the death-grip in the photo which makes me wince for the poor pen, this entry unfortunately shows the pretentiousness of the whole thing. Artists (drawing and painting kind) have been using broad felt markers for as long as they’ve been around as part of a rough-in specifically because it leaves enough ambiguity where the imagination can fill in the details, allowing them to move forward through a concept without committing to any specific idea (see Syd Mead, Scott Robertson, and so on). This is an actual part of the work, not a stationary that a salaryman uses for some profound moment of reflection.
"AWAI by Ryoichi Nakamura
A pen that produces faint, smudged lines, encouraging ambiguity and reflection rather than bold certainty."
This reminds me of the visual design choice in the Grady booch object-oriented design methodology.
During analysis, object classes looked like vaguely circular clouds. During design, classes had square boxes.
He explained that analysis is vague and fuzzy and you shouldn't try to be precise and crisp because that's the stage about which you're dealing with the real world and you know less than you think.
He found it sad that people started producing templates for the object clouds so that they would be precisely unboxed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_Booch#/media/File%3ABooc...
The article is filled with jarring sentences like this:
"Rather than buying a notebook, you complete it—turning a passive object into an active, personal process."
I found the awards page from Kokuyo to have more thoughtful descriptions of each piece, which seem like they were written by the designers themselves.
https://www.kokuyo.com/en/award/archive/prizepast/2026/
It's a pile of paper. Not sure my description sells it any better.
Linkedin awards
Perhaps. This is the last paragraph from the main award:
> It’s a design that sits between mass production and personalization, reflecting a world where individuality matters more than ever. Rather than buying a notebook, you complete it—turning a passive object into an active, personal process.
This is a translation via translate.kagi.com from "LinkedIn speak" to English:
> It’s a way to charge people for the privilege of assembling their own office supplies under the guise of "individuality." You aren't just buying a notebook; you're paying for the chore of finishing it so you can feel like you've had a "personal process" instead of just buying a damn notebook.
Seems accurate; then again, I also own a nice notebook and a fountain pen and I enjoy using them, even if this is just me feeling like I have a personal process.
Gotta pitch yet another notebook design to the notebook designers.
This is the only one that I might want to use.
> Traditional planners impose rigid boxes and neatly separated days. Gradience Diary rejects that structure entirely.
> Using a soft gradient instead of lines, it allows users to expand or shrink their writing space depending on their schedule. Tasks can flow across days naturally, mirroring how time actually feels—fluid, uneven, and continuous.
That being said, the white text on light gray background feels more like pretentious design than actual useful design.
I was forced to consider the possibility of this being a collection of late entries in an April Fools contest:
A pen that doesn't work properly.
A notepad you have to make yourself.
Grid paper with lines missing.
A device making books hard to read.
A paper stubby holder.
A calendar, but it's difficult to tell the date.
Maybe it is satire. It reads like confected pseudo-intellectual slop. Perhaps it merely demonstrates that the Japanese can have terrible ideas just like the rest of us.
pens with different weights sounds like a nice art installation
colored edges notebooks is probably a product I'd buy
bookmark with variable transparency looks like a cool thing you buy/gift that's eventually realized to be totally impractical (but it was probably worth it for a bit)
and origami packing looks cool, but not something anyone would even think of using outside Japan/east Asia because it's a culture thing
the rest I don't understand and don't like (also... last one is simply a pen with no gimmick at all? eh?)
the last one is a pen with a square prejected LED light, or something.
Is the gram pen a design for Caran D’Ache? Because it looks a lot like their 849 model
Nothing more ironic than an article about conscious writing that’s entirely written by AI.
I went back and look what they wrote before and they've written like this in the past. Tiresome game of accusation in the comments nowadays.
This is my first time seeing this site and it's actually nice. I've added it to my RSS feed.
If you pay closer attention you can see when they switched to frequent use of em dashes for parenthetical asides, around about January 2024.
I've been looking and, like I said.. tiresome game! I could tell some differences but, going through the archives, i ended up just enjoying the old posts lol
Quite so. The old posts (2023 and earlier) have a fresher writing style. Compare to this latest which feels like an entry for Pseuds Corner.