This is a very special project that happened all by itself.

For several months we had been considering a project for a new pen shape that would be as much of a “blank canvas” as possible, that we could offer to a few of our designers which had more options of manufacturing techniques than we had ever offered them before.

However, when this blank canvas came to be, it was completely by accident:

On August 25th of 2000, we visited our friends Lella and Massimo Vignelli in New York City for a totally unrelated project. As with any project we have ever done with the Vignelli’s, it was discussed, considered, agreed upon at light-speed and sketched out with every detail, completed and taken with us.

Since all the sketching for this project was being done with several ACME pens, when Massimo was finished with the project at hand he began to study each of these pens carefully and asked, “Have you ever thought of a pen like this?” and begins to sketch again. The resulting sketch was a minimal, cylindrical, extra long pen, with our usual branding and designer’s name applied to the pen in a totally new way.



As soon as Lesley and I saw this sketch we looked at each other and without saying a word, we both instantly knew that we had the “blank canvas” that we had been thinking and talking about.

When we explained this accident to Lella and Massimo, and what our intentions would be for this pen, they loved the idea and quickly did further sketches of what he wanted to do to this pen. Massimo then suggested that we call our mutual friend, Richard Meier, to get him involved; as his office just happened to be in the same building. We called Richard and within minutes he was sitting with us as we were telling him about this new project. Before we could ask him if he wanted to do a design, he says: “You’ll have my design within a few days.”

Within less than 2 hours of arriving at the Vignelli’s office, we had not only finished the project that we went there for, but also, what had only been a vague idea had now developed a shape, a concept, packaging, a new branding approach and the first 2 designs were done.

Within a few more days, we had contacted other designers and ALL were happy to be involved, the project was off and running, with a life all its own.

A very small amount of only 500 rollerballs of each designer’s pen will ever be made. The first collection will consist of the following designers, to be released one at a time as the previous design sells out, in the following order: