Mighty Pen Co.

What happens if you take a joke and turn it into an over-engineered portfolio project? Mighty Pen Co. The idea was to take a simple object and create it from scratch as a way to practise and explore different digital tools such as Fusion 360 and Adobe Dimensions. However, there are lots of different products that could be used to do this so why choose a pen? I had recently watched Indiana Jones - the Last Crusade and during a fight in a tank, one character quotes to another:

"The pen is mightier than the sword" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1839.

Whilst I was surprised to learn about the age of the quote, I still thought it generated an interesting idea. If the pen is mightier than the sword then a sword-shaped pen could be even mightier. And so I got to work designing exactly that, a pen themed around swords.

One easy detail to add was the pen tube mimicking a blade but other touches required more thought to make sure that the pen was still functional and unique in design. For example, the pen clip is shaped like a sword but to add structural integrity, the hilt is a metal tube that fits into the net of the clip as it is being constructed. Another detail is the choice to turn it into a fountain pen, the shape of the nib fits a cute engraving of a sword into it.

After sketching and 3D modeling, one aspect left to explore was the colour scheme. This was inspired by the most famous sword, Excalibur the legendary sword of King Arthur, giving colours of silver, gold and royal blue. The exploration of this also lead to the idea of making a pen holder/paper weight that acted like the stone that Exalibur is drawn from in folklore. This made for some really stunning renders in the end.

Check this project where I used another proverb as inspiration to create a render!