The idea – says Iacchetti – creator and art director of “Alessi goes digital” – came about from a challenge set to some other designer friends. “Why don’t we each design a pen, for producing with a 3D printer” – that first project – called “Ten Pen” – was over two years ago. “At a certain point, we got stuck”, he follows, “to I decided to go to Alessi and transform a new generation self-production into a research project for a company”.

Alessi welcomed the proposal, maintaining the spirit of research and exploration. “Our intention however was that they might bring in a digital aspect into their analogue production. There are many companies that deal with 3D printing but they are digital natives and they are small. Alessi could be strategic in this world with its particular background and international distribution network”.

“The key word in the project is goes”, explains Guido Musante, who wrote and edited the catalogue. “It is a journey that turns around the premise of global makers: not all are designers, not all are producers”. The exercise was completed and the collection consists of six functional pens in fibreglass and nylon, produced by a company from Modena.

Why the pen? “With the freedom to design anything with the 3D printer, we decided to design the most analogical object there is. We gave ourself rules right from the start: they would all take the same refill, be the same size in such a way to have the same packaging, and attempt to bring out the characteristics of 3D printing, creating objects that couldn’t be made using traditional technology.”