Ironically, evidence of this promotional campaign has all but vanished from the internet – there is an article in The Irish Times, a few random blog posts, and the ghost of an official webpage. What’s important, however, is that there’s an idea worth focusing on. With the month swiftly approaching, it may be time to slow down and revive Analogue August.

According to Michael Harris, constant connection has deprived us of the “absence” of the book’s title. Our quiet moments, our boredom, even our solitude have vanished – or, rather, been filled – with the endless stream of email, messages, social media and audio/video playlists. We are experiencing “the loss of lack”, the loss of those empty moments that may be the wellspring of our intelligence, creativity and identity.

Penguin’s publicity campaign promised a free Penguin Classic in exchange for two things: the purchase of The End of Absence and a pledge to undertake a fully analogue weekend in August. It was a thing, until it wasn’t.

In the decade-plus since the book was published, perhaps trendier terms have taken over: digital detox, a digital sabbatical, or our current favourite, digital fasting. Meanwhile, our lives are further enmeshed with our phones: more than ever before, it’s how we pay, travel, eat, listen, read, remember, work, navigate, exercise and sleep.

But the zeitgeist isn’t a one-way street, as shown by this year’s neo-Ludd revival. Dating back to an Industrial Age workers’ movement, Luddism is being reclaimed by those urging principled resistance not to all technology, but to the human costs that can come with technologies like AI. In hyper-connected New York City, Neo-Luddites recently convened for an analogue Summer of Ludd. 

That was early July, and it was in New York. The good news is we can all do Analogue August wherever we are. But how?

Penguin’s specifics are lost to time, but it’s enough to take a weekend off screens – or if you’re already on holiday, any two days. Tell people before, if you need to. You can pin a message, or leave an autoresponder. But outside your closest circle of friends and family, a two-day pause may go virtually unnoticed – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Then, just power down. Stow your phone, put away your laptop, turn off the TV and hang up your headphones. You may find it takes at least a day for first your hand, then your brain, to stop reflexively reaching for a device. 

But you might find you enjoy its absence. With your mind and hands free, you may rediscover the many analogue pleasures – along with a little boredom, too – that you’ve been missing.

The post It’s time to revive Analogue August appeared first on Open.

Erling, Frank and his wife Marta, Franco, Mimmo and his wife Maria spent a special day with us, visiting our three production and operational sites in Novazzano, Cadempino and Lamone. It was a journey through manufacturing spaces, craftsmanship, and company culture, culminating in a presentation of the company and an open conversation with the Marketing team.

What emerged from that interview was not just a set of answers, but a collective story shaped by memories, emotions and genuine passion.

Where a Passion Begins

Each collector’s story starts differently yet shares a common simplicity: a chance encounter.

For Erling, it all began in 1996, when he first came across a Prodir pen. Something about it stood out immediately. One pen led to another, and what started as curiosity soon became an extraordinary collection.

Frank’s story follows a similar path: a trade fair, a discovery, a moment of recognition. From that first pen came an appreciation for design, writing quality and consistency — and the desire to keep collecting.

Franco represents a more recent generation of collectors. His journey began through relationships, introduced by fellow enthusiasts. In his case, passion is something that is passed on, almost like a shared culture.

Mimmo’s story is perhaps the most spontaneous: he started collecting pens without even realizing it, simply by keeping them over time. What began as a casual habit evolved into a structured collection.

Marta and Maria: When Passion Is Shared

Alongside the collectors are Marta and Maria, who are not collectors in the traditional sense, yet play an essential role.

Through Frank and Mimmo, they gradually entered this world and began to appreciate its value. As Marta explains, what stands out is not only the product itself, but also the atmosphere, the people, and the environment behind it.

Visiting the production sites strengthened this impression. It is not just about pens, but about a system built on expertise, relationships, and care. This is what creates emotional connection, even for those who are not directly collecting.

Maria shares this perspective: passion becomes something lived together, part of everyday life and shared experiences.

Collecting: Between Method and Emotion

Collections often reflect the personality of those who build them.

Erling embodies a highly structured approach, with more than 50,000 pens carefully catalogued and organized. His collection is almost scientific in its precision, driven by dedication and consistency.

Frank follows a more thematic logic, organizing his pens by models, colors, and subjects — with a particular interest in transportation, such as airlines, railways, and shipping.

Mimmo takes a more instinctive approach. His pens are arranged by color and model, but what matters most is the experience of using them. Each pen is tested, explored, and lived.

Franco, on the other hand, adopts a unique perspective: for him, every pen has equal value. There is no single favorite — each one has its own identity. His collection becomes a balanced ensemble where every piece matters.

More Than an Object: Emotional Value

What clearly emerges from every story is that a pen is never just a tool.

It is an object tied to life moments.
It becomes part of important decisions.
It carries memories of places, events and experiences.

One particularly meaningful story revolves around signing retirement papers. In that moment, the choice of pen becomes symbolic. The act of writing transforms into something deeply personal.

These stories demonstrate that even a simple object can acquire profound emotional significance.

Writing in a Digital World

One of the most powerful themes that emerged during the conversation is the meaning of handwriting today.

In an increasingly digital world, the pen represents something different.
Something human.

For many of them, writing by hand means:

• remembering better
• giving shape to thoughts
• creating something personal and authentic

Writing becomes a conscious act — slower, but more meaningful. It is not just a function, but an experience.

Some even describe handwriting as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage — a strong statement that reflects its perceived importance.

A Community Built Around a Pen

Another surprising element is the social dimension of collecting.

This passion creates relationships, friendships, and connections. Collectors exchange pens, share stories, and engage in conversations across cultures and countries.

Erling, for example, is known among friends as the “Prodir King” — a nickname that reflects not only the size of his collection but also his dedication.

Pens, in this context, become a shared language, a medium that brings people together.

One Word to Describe Prodir

At the end of the interview, we asked each participant to describe Prodir in a single word.

The answers were simple and genuine:

• friendship
• passion
• experience

Words that perfectly summarize what we witnessed throughout the day.

What we experienced with Erling, Frank, Marta, Franco, Mimmo and Maria was much more than a meeting with collectors.

It was a journey into the meaning of an object that, in its apparent simplicity, continues to create value, relationships and emotion.

In a fast and digital world, the pen still represents something essential:
a human gesture, a unique mark, a story waiting to be written.

The post A passion written by hand appeared first on Open.

You may be engaging in digital overconsumption, and suffering from digital indigestion. And the solution, to borrow a metaphor, may be a digital fast.

Fasting doesn’t mean quitting forever. It means putting limits on when you consume. For millennia, religious and cultural traditions have used fasting to reshape daily rhythms. During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. The Black Fast, an early Christian practice, also required abstinence from food and drink during daylight hours, followed by a simple vegetarian or pescatarian meal after sundown.

There’s also a modern, non-religious version: intermittent fasting. Here the motivation is usually physical fitness and the limits are simpler: you eat only within a defined window, say from 12pm to 8pm, and abstain from food for the rest of the day.

Each model sets boundaries around time. None demands total, permanent abstinence.

What if we applied that logic to our screens?

Daytime digital fasting may be impractical for most of us. Work, logistics and social life run through our devices. But flip the model and it becomes far more workable.

If your habit is to scroll whenever you sit on the train, wait in line or idle at a red light (dangerous and illegal, in case you need reminding), vague promises to “use your phone less” rarely stick. Nor does micromanaging – for example, trying to limit yourself to fifteen minutes per app per day.

Fasting offers a more workable structure: time limits.

Try a “digital sundown”. Spend your day on your devices, if work demands it. Then power down when you get home. Or borrow from intermittent fasting: no phone before 9 a.m., no scrolling after 8 p.m. Start later. End earlier. Structured boundaries often succeed where willpower or an intricate list of rules fails.

You can also introduce friction. When our thumbs seem to open apps faster than we can think to stop ourselves, the best solution may be deleting them entirely. Of course, you can still stay connected to these services via desktop. The added effort of logging in may dramatically reduce casual consumption without cutting you off completely.

But fasting often requires replacement. You don’t just remove; you redirect. Which explains the recent TikTok Analog Bag trend. People are assembling kits filled with books, crosswords, sketchpads, letters, knitting – tactile things to reach for instead of reflexively reaching for a phone.

Digital fasting is about reclaiming control of your time – deciding when to consume the feed, instead of letting it consume you.

The post Take a break from the feed appeared first on Open.

She competes in regularity racing, a discipline built on timing and focus. Riders follow a route marked with photocells, aiming to pass each checkpoint at the exact second required. It’s a simple idea, but demanding in practice, with long routes, changing weather, old machines, and very little room for error.

Her ride of choice is a Vespa 125 Faro Basso, a wide-frame model from the 1950s with its distinctive low headlight and tubular handlebar, like a bicycle. It’s a design icon, famously appearing in the 1953 film Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. As with any vehicle of this vintage, it takes skill, attention and knowhow to keep it not running, but running well enough to win.

Tatiana races for Vespa Club Merano, one of the most historic clubs in her home region of South Tyrol. With the club she travelled across Italy this year, from Lecce to Campobasso, completing 21 races in total. She placed second in her category at the 1,150-kilometre Giro dei Tre Mari, won the national “Faro Basso” title in the Historical Re-enactments championship, and earned promotion to the Expert class – becoming the first woman in Italy to reach that level.

Finishing these events is never guaranteed, especially with machines that have seen seven decades of use. But Tatiana’s consistency, patience and technical skill have made her stand out in a sport where precision is everything. And next season, she’ll be competing among the very best.

The post Riding to win on a Vespa 125 Faro Basso appeared first on Open.

MM01 Plus introduces a new 130 × 210 mm format, slightly larger than the original MM01. That means more room for your to-dos, your bucket lists, your designs and your notes, while remaining conveniently travel-sized. It’s still just as easy to slip into a bag, a backpack or a jacket pocket.

Created for life on the move, the MM01 Plus notebook features a singer-sewn binding that opens flat wherever you are: on a train table, at a café, or balanced on your lap. The softcover is made from sturdy Favini Burano paper, available in seven elegant matte colours ranging from Canary Yellow to Vulcan Grey. Inside, 90 g/m² paper provides a reliable, comfortable writing surface, perfect for holding the ink of your favourite Prodir pen.

Designed by Portuguese paper specialists mishmash as part of the mishmash × prodir collection and produced in Italy, this compact notebook is made to travel.

MM01 Plus also offers more space for your brand. Your brand logo can be debossed on the front or back cover in colour or clear gloss. A QR code can be added to connect the notebook to your digital world via Prodir Cloud Services.

Discover the notebook to share with customers, partners and travel companions. MM01 Plus is made for wherever your journey takes you.

Discover MM01 Plus

The post The notebook that’s grown with you appeared first on Open.

Thankfully, everyday life is a bit simpler.

New MC01 Connector is a carabiner for everyday use, designed to keep essential items – keys, badges, or anything worth keeping at hand – together and within reach. Made of anodized aluminium, it’s light, durable, and strong enough to help you keep everything together.

Connector is available in six colours – Silk, Silver, Black, Red Jasper, Cobalt Blue and Canyon Orange – and offers a generous print area for your brand message.

Additional customization features include a choice of seven colours for the safety dot in ABS, and a choice of three colours for the ring, including graphite, black and silver.

Designed with the same precision and quality as our pens and notebooks, Connector shares a natural link with the Prodir family of everyday tools.

New Connector makes every connection a reminder of what makes your brand unique.

Discover new Connector

The post New MC01 metal Connector appeared first on Open.

The combination of low weight, strength and durability makes aluminium the natural choice for the new MS8 Metal Pen. The casing is made of anodized aluminium, with a cool surface and a balanced feel designed for everyday writing.

The new aluminium-casing MS8 is available in six colours – Silk, Silver, Black, Red Jasper, Cobalt Blue and Canyon Orange – with matching satin metal clip. Personalization options include a push button in your choice of standard colours or chrome, and a clip holder in one of 7 colours.

There’s a generous printing area for your brand message, and can be printed in up to five colours on the clip or applied by laser engraving.

Like all Prodir writing instruments, MS8 comes standard with our low-pollutant Floating Ball® Lead Free refill and is refillable to indefinitely extend the writing life of your pen.

Help your brand communication fly higher in 2026 with the new aluminium-body MS8 Metal Pen.

Discover MS8.

The post New MS8 Metal Pen appeared first on Open.

Let’s start with aluminium. Light, strong and resistant to corrosion, aluminium has been used everywhere from bicycle frames to icons of Swiss design. It can be recycled again and again without losing quality, while using only a fraction of the energy required to produce it from raw ore. And it’s the material behind our two featured innovations for 2026, the MS8 metal pen and the MC01 Connector.

Biopolymers like PLA and PHA follow a different logic. Made from renewable raw materials certified “OK biobased” by TÜV Austria, an independent international testing and certification body, these biopolymers are engineered to behave like conventional plastics, with clearly defined end-of-life pathways. PLA is the material behind the DS3 Biotic, the refresh of our best-selling classic, while PHA can be found in our True Biotic pens.

Mineral- and shell-enriched compounds change perception through weight and texture. By combining finely ground minerals or lime derived from seashells with ABS plastic, these materials add substance and a distinctive feel. The result is noticeably heavier in the hand. Stone is a material option available for our QS01, QS20 and QS50 models, while our DS5 metal clip writing instrument is available in a Shell option.

ABS plastic itself remains a workhorse material: durable, formable, reliable – and regeneratable. In fact, at Prodir, we minimize material loss by integrating ABS plastic regenerated from our own production waste wherever appropriate. Coloured casings include

a high proportion of regenerated ABS, while black and white casings can be produced

entirely with it. Design choices can also reduce material use further – from more compact formats to casings that require significantly less plastic.

This is what we mean by material difference. Not a single material, but a way of choosing and using materials honestly – according to how they feel, how they last, and how credibly they enable brands to express what makes them who they are.

The post What we’re made of appeared first on Open.

Is it performative reading, or is it real? Probably both. Because when you carry a book in public, you’re not just reading – you’re saying something about yourself. About curiosity, maybe. About style. About being the kind of person who still makes space for paper in a world of screens. Call it performance if you like, but it’s also part of your personal brand – the story you tell about who you are and what you value.

But books aren’t the only paper that can help stake a claim for your sense of taste – consider the notebook. It’s the quieter cousin of the paperback. And it’s less about what you’re reading and more about what you’re thinking. A good designer notebook looks good in your hand but also gives you something to do with it. It’s not just an accessory – it’s broadcasting the fact that you have an inner world all your own.

The mishmash × prodir collection captures that balance of aesthetics and purpose. Designed by mishmash, an up-and-coming Portuguese brand exploring every nook and cranny of the paper world, and produced in Italy, each personalized notebook features FSC®-certified pages that offer the ideal surface for handwriting. Minimalist, tactile and elegantly branded, they’re made to personalize with your logo – a refined canvas for your company brand. Paired with a Prodir pen, they become a branded notebook set that doesn’t need to shout. It quietly says your brand has taste – and the tools to back it up.

Because in the end, we’re all performing – every choice, every object, every note we take. The trick isn’t to stop, but to make an elevated performance become a part of you.

The post Notebook style appeared first on Open.

Across Europe, authorities are unravelling webs of forgery that stretch across the continent, and throughout the world. In Italy, for example, investigators recently dismantled workshops turning out counterfeits of Dalí, Banksy and Picasso, and uncovered another 70 fake canvases attributed to Rembrandt and Pissarro in a Roman apartment.

These aren’t amateur imitations: they come complete with falsified certificates, auction histories, and gallery stamps. Forgeries, unlike thieves, don’t need ladders or cinematic getaways. They only need to look convincing enough to hang on a wall.

But as deception grows more sophisticated, so do the tools to expose it – and some of these are Swiss.

In Zurich, Art Recognition AG has built an AI trained to spot the invisible rhythms of an artist’s hand. Feed it a simple photograph and, within days, the system delivers a probability score of authenticity – a data-driven verdict that once took months of expert debate. It’s already challenged museums on attributions once thought untouchable, including London’s contested Samson and Delilah, long credited to Rubens.

Meanwhile, Lausanne-based MATIS brings the science of light to art. Its handheld multispectral camera peers beneath the surface, mapping pigments and revealing hidden underdrawings, the kind of ghostly sketches that betray whether a painting is genuine inspiration or careful imitation.

And at ETH Zurich, scientists are turning to atomic history itself: measuring trace isotopes of carbon-14 left by Cold War nuclear tests to determine whether a paint’s oil binder could really date from the 1600s – or from a forger’s studio in 1986. Though the process has been around for decades, it was mostly thought too destructive of the artwork, until ETH Zurich successfully managed to reduce the necessary testing sample sizes to a tiny strand of canvas or microscopic paint particle.

Together, these Swiss innovations offer a practical response to a global forgery industry worth billions, using light, data, and chemistry to uncover what signatures and certificates can’t.

In an era of deepfakes, artificial companions and counterfeit everything, perhaps authenticity has become the rarest material of all. But these Swiss art sleuths are showing us that the genuine article is out there, if only you know how to look.

The post The new science of spotting fake art appeared first on Open.

Handwriting is more than marks on paper. It’s the version of you that lingers after you’ve left the room: the loops and lines that stand in for your voice, your memory, your authority. The best typefaces are anonymous. Everyone’s email looks the same. But your handwriting is unmistakably you – unless it’s so messy that even you can’t recognize yourself in it.

That’s the risk: bad handwriting is like showing up in public in stained sweatpants. You may not actually be disorganized – but it sure might look that way. A handwritten thank-you note can lose its charm if it’s barely legible. A signature that collapses into a squiggle doesn’t suggest personality, but the lack of it. After all, writing is a technology – an extension of your memory and your mind. If you can’t read it, you’re cut off from yourself.

So should you bother to improve your handwriting as an adult? Probably yes. Not to become a calligrapher, but to write like you mean it.

How can you improve it? These small shifts can help.

1. Create more opportunities to write. Keep a notebook, send postcards, fill out the shopping list by hand. Handwriting fluency comes from handwriting practice.
2. Slow down. Neatness rarely comes at speed. A fraction more time per letter makes your writing clearer – and the act more mindful.
3. See it from the outside. Imagine your colleague squinting at the flip chart, your child puzzling over your note, or your future self rereading your journal. Handwriting is performance – dress it up accordingly.

And tools matter. A pen that glides too fast can make scrawl inevitable; one that resists too much can feel like punishment. The sweet spot is a writing instrument that flows without slipping, balanced in the hand, refillable for the long haul.

Your handwriting is the version of you that survives when you’ve walked out of the room. Make sure it’s one you actually want to leave behind.

The post Write like you mean it! appeared first on Open.

The ballpoint pen was born from impatience. Fountain pens were elegant, yes, but also moody: they leaked in pockets, blotted on paper, scratched when they were dry and smudged when they weren’t. No wonder frustrated inventors kept searching for something better.

Bíró’s breakthrough was to pair quick-drying ink with a tiny rotating ball, a design he patented with his brother György, a chemist. The two emigrated to Argentina to escape the war, and there began mass-producing what quickly became known simply as the “Biro”. From there, the ballpoint pen spread fast, refined by brands like Parker and Bic, until it became so common it vanished into the background.

But hidden in every “ordinary” ballpoint pen is something extraordinary: the tip itself. A tungsten carbide ball, often less than a millimetre wide, spins in a cradle engineered to microscopic tolerances. Too much ink and it smears, too little and it scratches. Get it right, and the line glides across the page without a second thought. A tiny mechanism that must run as smoothly as a Swiss watch, except it writes essays instead of telling the time.

Switzerland has become one of the quiet capitals of this invisible craft. Since the 1960s, billions of ballpoint pen tips have rolled out of Cadempino and into writing systems around the world – from the branded pen you casually borrow at a reception desk, to the one you quietly steal from a colleague’s desk, to the one you receive at the flashy new launch party. Much of that precision comes from Premec, part of the same Pagani Pens family as Prodir, whose tips and refills quietly power writing for countless pens worldwide.

The demands are higher than you’d think: lead-free inks that won’t fade, pen refills that can be replaced instead of thrown away, and a writing experience that starts instantly and stays consistent to the very last word.

That’s where Prodir comes in. We were the first in the promotional market to make every model a refillable pen, because if the tip and refill are this good, your pen deserves another life. Our Floating Ball® Lead free refills are designed for that balance: smooth, indelible, never scratchy or blotty. The result? A writing system you barely notice – which is exactly the point.

So next time you sign your name or scribble a reminder, pause for a second. That smooth line exists because of a ball smaller than a poppy seed, turning freely in its tiny cradle. The most ordinary thing in the world – and one of the most extraordinary.

The post Small ball, big story appeared first on Open.