As allways, the useless/dormant Visconti homepage (www.visconti.it) tells nothing about their latest outburst of ingeniosity, the Visconti Stella .

Although it is designed by the famous designer Ettore Sottsass, I really ask myself, what on earth he thought about it's usage. As a design object in it's desk stand on your table it looks ok, but you hardly write more than your signature with that barrel shape



pic borrowed from http://www.airlineintl.com/visconti/visconti_stella.htm , where you can see more ...

hmmm..

well..

uh...

hmm...

some pens just aren't designed to be written with.

I'm no designer - but it seems one could have used the same overall concept for the cap that melded into a comfortable shape for the hand.

sorta like the MB Kafka

zoiks! yikes! what the...

Well, when posted it seems long enough, and the concave shape the square sides seem to have, may just be comfortable to some. Likely not to all, though. The Omas 360 isn't comfortabel to all people either, after all...

I think this is typically a case of love or hate, nothing in between .

Warm regards, Wim

I haven't tried the OMAS 360 yet, but there the section has the general shape. Here we have a star-shaped step between the round section and the 'barrel' to irritate the fingers ...

Stella is Latin for star.

You'll see stars coming from your first two falanges after writing with it after a short time!

-edited for my poor typing

Visconti recently went through a major upheaval: the majority ownership is now with an investment group from the Arab Emirates and one of the founders, Luigi Poli has left the company and opened two pen stores in Florence. Luigi Poli was a strong creative force and I feel that his absence may have deprived Visconti of a great asset.

What's the name of the new stores Giovanni?

It's sad about the upheavals at Visconti

IIRC, Sottsass was the design genius who invented bookshelves that sloped downwards. So it seems you really can fool some of the people some of the time ...

...hmmm... I might reserve judgement until I actually tried the Stella. Okay, in part because I really like the looks of the pen , not that I could ever afford one.

I'm currently writing with a squarish Waterman Exception, without any problems. And I have gotten used to my VP with the obnoxious clip. I haven't tried the Omas with three sides, but some people really like them. I haven't seen a review of the square Nettuno Barracuda.

But as I look at the Stella picture, in my tactile imagination, I'm thinking that those inverted facets might be just right for my fingers...

I say FPN should send someone right over to Italy to give it the grip test!! I volunteer even though it means missing work, having to pack a bag, finding a last minute flight ...

Petra

Visconti Stella, not my cup of tea to be honest. I much prefer the Opera/Wall Street and the VanGogh. Much more usuable.

Bill

Odd... but comfort in pens is sometimes surprising.