The Pen just won an award. At Blade Show Texas, the ANSØ Pen took home the “Best of the Rest” trophy.
I can’t express how excited I am about the recognition, and not least the collaboration with Tactile Turn, and how well they brought my pen design to life.
I’m really happy to be working with such great people on this project.
A lot of work lies behind the final design, both from me and the Texas-based Writing Tools Wizards, and this project has been in the works for quite some time.
From early sketches to prototypes, testing, and finally finding the right partner in Tactile Turn to bring it to life.
If you haven’t already seen the series, go watch it here:
On a secondary note — this is essentially an untold story.
When we began developing the pen project, Tactile Turn went to great lengths to meet my exact requirements. My all-time favorite off-the-shelf pen has always been the Pilot BP Matic, and the goal was to use that exact refill. However, due to differences in dimensions, it wasn’t directly compatible.
They didn’t stop there. Tactile Turn even went as far as visiting Pilot’s factory in Japan in an attempt to make it work. Unfortunately, that path didn’t lead to a solution.
Then came an unexpected breakthrough.
We were introduced to the Japanese pen brand Ohto. They produced a refill with a very similar writing feel and construction—but only in black.
Here’s the part that makes this truly special:
Ohto agreed to produce this refill in blue exclusively for us.
That is precisely why, if you’ve been searching for a blue refill in this format, you haven’t been able to find one—until now. Tactile Turn and we can now offer the Ohto refill in blue.
