Lamy design - has Lamy lost its design edge?

[Calabria]

@arcfide Thank you for your thoughtful post. I guess I wouldn’t equate “design edge” with satisfying consumers’ demands, although of course that doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Consumers may crave a mango Safari but that doesn’t mean that mango is design with an edge.

[arcfide]

21 minutes ago, Calabria said:

@arcfide Thank you for your thoughtful post. I guess I wouldn’t equate “design edge” with satisfying consumers’ demands, although of course that doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Consumers may crave a mango Safari but that doesn’t mean that mango is design with an edge.

 

My understanding is that the debate around exactly that sort of situation is a bit of an argument in the design world, with many of Lamy's designers I think coming down against the strong use of marketing, exclusivity, and novelty to drive a sort of fashion frenzy around "new designs". I guess I'd personally draw a distinction between consumer demands and consumer needs. Good design should always address needs or fundamental improvements to produce use (ease of manufacture, ease of use, clarity of affordances, longevity, &c.), but good marketers know that consumer "demand" is something that can be shaped and altered by careful applications of psychology. 

 

Marco's interview highlights the struggle, I think, that Lamy had with interpreting their corporate identity and design language in the context of limited or special edition designs, particularly around the productions of new models with new colors. Marco talks about concerns that it would dilute the core product, and I think we can interpret this in the "design edge" context as saying that if the special edition colors and the like did in fact reduce demand for the core product, then in some ways, this would be a blow to the Lamy design ethos. But they found that in practice this didn't happen, and demand for their core products only increased. I think they had to essentially open themselves up to the idea of utilizing special edition colors as a marketing tool that doesn't necessarily threaten their core design identity, while also bringing that design entity into the world of "collectors" which was something of a space that Lamy wasn't really serving as strongly as they are now. 

 

I suppose one could argue that Lamy may have lost a bit of its "edge" when it decided to enable the collector appetite rather than stand against it on some sort of Bauhaus philosophical purity. On the other hand, I wonder if one could also make the argument that, on balance, the use of special editions as primarily a marketing tool might not enable the spread of long lasting and functionally oriented products into the rest of the world that might otherwise not have seen or known of the products, thus maybe killing two birds with one stone. Certainly such editions are satisfying the original consumer purpose of the Safari in a new world: the young student. The fact that Lamy has so many color options in a clear, easy to use, reliable pen that is affordable and attractively relevant means that many people who might otherwise be turned off to the fountain pen at a young age are finding them quite enjoyable. In some sense, I think that's an edge that isn't nearly as well met by most other pen makers. 

 

Actually, now that I think about it, if you look at Platinum, Sailor, Pilot, Montblanc, Aurora, Pelikan, TWSBI, Diplomat, and many others, Lamy really does have an edge when it comes to delivering a very high quality, easy to use, reliable, sturdy, "total systems" solution that continues to be relevant and desirable to a wide range of ages, including younger people who are able to then rediscover an artistic joy and love for writing. Other companies have low-cost products, but many of those products aren't as emotionally enjoyable and desirable to use on a daily basis. In my experience, with kids, many of those other low cost items are the sorts of pens that kids will be happy to leave behind when going on a trip, but the Lamy's are the sort of pens that a kid will remember to bring with them and carry with them to write in their journal or sketchbook. They're also easy to keep up and running at low cost. Maybe those special editions are more in line with the Lamy design edge than I might have thought at first? 

 

 

[AL01]

On 7/9/2021 at 10:47 PM, arcfide said:

 

I don't know if ergonomics is the right word. Jasper uses the term "Super Normal" in his Lamy interview, and I think that's a good term for it. Someone in the comments of the above Lamy interview with Marco Achenbach described the design as "inevitable." Marco makes the point that the Aion manages to feel both old and new, in the sense that it almost seems like it's a pen that Lamy should have "always had" in their lineup, while also being fairly distinctly its own pen. I think the Aion does embody "Super Normal" pretty well from the looks (I reserve my total assessment for when I have spent some time with it at length), but it's that very characteristic that I think garners the criticism it receives. It is almost like it derives its attractiveness and novelty from lacking any specifically identifiable "thing" that makes it, it. It's like the polar opposite of an egoistic pen. I think a lot of people in the FP hobby really enjoy pens in and of themselves as "shiny objects" to look at and admire for their little eccentricities or artistic elements. The Aion, IMO, is one of only a few pens out there that is special for lacking anything special. It takes a certain kind of attention to detail to be able to truly remove almost all of those little elements from a pen. But I think a lot of people will see that and feel like they want that extra juice of something ornamental or characteristic. 

 

I think another term for it might be "hyper focused". I am imagining a self illuminated room with no windows and only a slight hue to the white light focusing on a single natural wood table polished cleanly and without any adornment accompanied by a simple stool or chair and a single piece of white paper on the table. If you're in such a room, what pen would go there? What pen would not feel out of place and somehow garish and excessive? I'd argue that the Aion would be a strong contender. It strikes me that I know of very few pens that might actually fit well in such an "essentialist" room. 

 

 I can see the argument made by Morrison, but I quite frankly believe that the design of this pen lacks focus.

 

 Virtually every Lamy pen follows the principle of harmony in one way or another, but this pen, IMO doesn't.

 

[arcfide]

2 hours ago, AL01 said:

 

 I can see the argument made by Morrison, but I quite frankly believe that the design of this pen lacks focus.

 

 Virtually every Lamy pen follows the principle of harmony in one way or another, but this pen, IMO doesn't.

 

 

Interesting. Can you expound on that? 

[KevinS]

I don't know about loosing their edge regarding design. I would pay a little extra for better quality control on their steel nibs. My experience is there can be quite a large variation of wetness, breadth of the nib for a given size (I use mediums) and some write smoothly whilst the odd one is a little scratchy. Nothing that can't be sorted out with ten minutes tuning.

 

I really like the Alstars. The different colours enable me to remember which ink I have in each one. I use them for multicolour notes in my work. Mixed graphits and notes.

 

 A geen and a Red Alstar would be great.

 

Please Lame?  

 

These are great throw in a bag, or take up the garden pens for me. 

[Astronymus]

There were green and red ones. Or do you mean affordable new editions? 😉 Still hoping for a fir green AL-Star. I think that would look great.

[arcfide]

8 hours ago, KevinS said:

I don't know about loosing their edge regarding design. I would pay a little extra for better quality control on their steel nibs.

 

That's been my experience, except with both steel and gold nibs, and feeds. I've generally found that Lamy pens have great design, but I've had to work the pens I have more to get them working "right" than any other pens that I regularly use. Fortunately I can do that, but I agree that it sours the overall experience, particularly when they have a compelling design. 

[A Smug Dill]

12 hours ago, arcfide said:

That's been my experience, except with both steel and gold nibs, and feeds.

 

Interesting. Almost all of the Lamy pens with which I had problems out-of-the-box sported Z50 steel nibs; my Z52 (e.g. on the Lamy Studio Lx All Black) and Z53 steel nibs (on the Aion, although I don't have one of those pens, and only ordered the Z53 nibs because I like it better on my Lamy Accent) were all fine as supplied, and I have several of them. So, while the common experience with Lamy steel nibs, given most Lamy models are fitted with those by default, may be that they're sub-par, looking across all of Lamy's steel nib offerings and options, of which the Z50 EF/F/M nibs are just a small subset, the conclusion may be different.

 

Nothing really to do with design, though.

[arcfide]

4 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Interesting. Almost all of the Lamy pens with which I had problems out-of-the-box sported Z50 steel nibs; my Z52 (e.g. on the Lamy Studio Lx All Black) and Z53 steel nibs (on the Aion, although I don't have one of those pens, and only ordered the Z53 nibs because I like it better on my Lamy Accent) were all fine as supplied, and I have several of them. So, while the common experience with Lamy steel nibs, given most Lamy models are fitted with those by default, may be that they're sub-par, looking across all of Lamy's steel nib offerings and options, of which the Z50 EF/F/M nibs are just a small subset, the conclusion may be different.

 

Nothing really to do with design, though.

 

I believe my main issues with nibs and feeds with Lamy has universally been to do with their tine spacing (not alignment as such) and the feeds being way too dry to the point of unusability unless something else is done. In some of these cases I think it is just a clogging or blocked feed situation, but to have this happen on multiple pens from them is a bother, as it is frankly a lot of work to get a good writing experience when that happens. 

 

The Aion nib I have, notably, had perfect tine spacing and wrote very well, but the feed had the same issue, and I'm working through that now. We'll see if it is resolved soon enough. 

[AL01]

On 7/13/2021 at 9:07 PM, arcfide said:

 

Interesting. Can you expound on that? 

 

 There are certain design principals which gives an item/building/art, etc a sense of 'unity' or 'harmony'. This notion is very direct in classical works of art/architecture, but now exists in a more discrete way. I feel that the nib, section, barrel, and the cap of the Aion gives me the feeling that the pen is somehow disjointed in terms of design compared to any other Lamy, (even the Safari maintains a sort of design language in terms of its form.)

 

 I hope this makes some sense...

 

 (At the end of the day, this is just how I see things.)

[arcfide]

7 minutes ago, AL01 said:

 

 There are certain design principals which gives an item/building/art, etc a sense of 'unity' or 'harmony'. This notion is very direct in classical works of art/architecture, but now exists in a more discrete way. I feel that the nib, section, barrel, and the cap of the Aion gives me the feeling that the pen is somehow disjointed in terms of design compared to any other Lamy, (even the Safari maintains a sort of design language in terms of its form.)

 

 

I find this really interesting. Is it something you can point to particularly? Like, is there something in the traditional elements of design that you think breaks? Texture, line, shape, weight? Do you think it lacks formality or needs more of it? Do think it needs more warmth or less of it? 

 

Sorry, I have a bit of an amateur interest in design (semi-professional interest) and so these sorts of intuitions and opinions are really interesting to me. 

[AL01]

 

 I can't put it in words as I am not much of an academic...

 

 I think it fails in terms of form though.

[arcfide]

8 minutes ago, AL01 said:

 

 I can't put it in words as I am not much of an academic...

 

 I think it fails in terms of form though.

Cool, I wish you could put it into words, but I get that such things can be very hard to quantify and express. 🙂 Thanks. 

[LRarch]

I'm looking on this now a bit from the margin, since I'm no longer @venstas , I mean,I left and won't develop any further the company, so I guess what's now is what will be, but when I founded the company alone in its first incarnation in  Paris,  not being a pen collector myself but just the owner of a couple of Lamys and a tintenkuli, where I have to say  that interview to the design director, I saw, as when I started venstas I made a business model that was more than 60 pages long, where at least 10 were for Lamy. Obviously the brand I had in mind it is not what is today, my idea was to make something different, a "design montblanc" with reasonable prices and many other products, thing it did not happen and at the end it won't.  
I saw the interview and I understood that they are actually getting in a niche, I could talk hours about this, but at the end this is not just about fountain pens, is about all the products out there, they as many others, but when a company all that has to offer is the new black, being that petrol, carbon or whatever name they can put to black or pink, he seems to be the opposite everything Lamy was. All the products that have been truly successful came out of some guy who had passion, for instance,  the Citroën 2cv was designed with no marketing department behind, so the DS (the marketing department was put specifically out the project) bad design, horrible objects appear when a company gets too big,too bureaucratic and fear arises.    People don't know what they want until they see it, if you know beforehand what you want then you are a creative mind, but by marketing and analysis all you can get is maybe, and maybe only something like the Pontiac Aztek or a Ford Pinto.  

[Kaweco]

And who is venstas and what they have to do with Lamy?

Kind Regards

K

[Astronymus]

8 hours ago, Kaweco said:

And who is venstas and what they have to do with Lamy?

Kind Regards

K

 

[LRarch]

14 hours ago, Kaweco said:

And who is venstas and what they have to do with Lamy?

Kind Regards

K

Interesting, you are not Michael, who I know. Did we met in paperworld? What do you have to do with Kaweco?

[Kaweco]

5 hours ago, LRarch said:

Interesting, you are not Michael, who I know. Did we met in paperworld? What do you have to do with Kaweco?

Hello

I visited the paperworld long time ago 2 or 3 times but I am sure we didn`t meet. No, I am not Michael, I am only a collector of fountainpens from lesser known brands and I try to write down histories of these brands. I began with KAWECO and  I am interested in Osmia, Böhler, Lamy, Luxor, Reform, Mercedes and others from the South West of Germany.

(PM)

Kind Regards

Thomas

[LRarch]

37 minutes ago, Kaweco said:

Hello

I visited the paperworld long time ago 2 or 3 times but I am sure we didn`t meet. No, I am not Michael, I am only a collector of fountainpens from lesser known brands and I try to write down histories of these brands. I began with KAWECO and  I am interested in Osmia, Böhler, Lamy, Luxor, Reform, Mercedes and others from the South West of Germany.

(PM)

Kind Regards

Thomas

Hello Thomas,

Who knows whats going to happen with paperworld, it was already shrinking, I hope this situation won't be le coup de grâce for it. 
So pretty much you are interested in an industry where what's left of it is now around  Heidelberg. Michael (the owner of Kaweco) is a great guy, someone I consult from time to time, very important for the industry in did. Its a reference for me,  although they are in Nümberg, so for  the southwest we only have Lamy and Bock, I think... 

 Well, I just wrote down what I think from a design point, I've found this discussion that from an aficionado point of view is pointing out to something   I saw coming from  Lamy 4 years ago, 

Best, 

 

Lucio 

[Calabria]

Bringing the 2CV into the discussion is kind of interesting …. 🧐