Jellyfish
A ball-point pen whose ink tube works as an operating system
 
Reddot Concept Award 2015
Winner
Designed by Jarim Koo
 
 
 
Insight
For a long time, people have used ball-point pens as an analogue-type tool for writing. Ball-point pens can be largely divided into three types, Nock-type, Cap-type and Sliding-type, by the operation system. When you examine how they are operated carefully, however, all the types of ball-point pens always need at least two operating behaviors, one to reveal the ball-point and the other to conceal it. People seem to conveniently use all the types of ball-point pens and take it for granted, but such an operation process actually causes a conscious annoyance. Besides, without a finishing operation behavior, such as unlocking the nock or covering the cap, you may face a loss of ink or collateral damages caused by the leakage of ink.
 
Research
To solve possible problems based on Insight above, I examined the structure of all kinds of ball-point pens in detail. As a result, I found out that even one of the simplest-structure ball-point pens is composed of several components. Therefore, by focusing on minimizing the structural complexity and looking for solutions to the possible problems, I started designing this product.
 
Concept
Jellyfish is a ball-point pen composed of a body and an ink tube only. The concept of Jellyfish is based on a simple mechanism from the flexibility of PE, the material of this ink tubes. The ink tube of Jellyfish partially has a wave-shaped part. It sticks out of the grip area and plays a role as an operating button. Specifically speaking, when a user holds this pen, the wave-shaped part expands, further naturally pushing the ball point out of the body, and when the user release the pen, it contracts, further naturally withdrawing the ball point to the position where it was. With just one step of operating this new type of a ball-point pen, users can get away from the existing annoying conscious operating behaviors.