Carlo Vazzoler is a passionate person, trairblazer and founder of Loclen, specializning in making unique writing instruments that can be called small pieces of art. He told us about his work, which is also his passion.

How did you start Loclen? Why writing instruments?

I have always been passionate about pens, I used to collect them. Then one day I decided I wanted to make my own, and so it all started from there. It was in 2008.

Your products are made of brass bars, where the idea of using such material came from?

Brass is the most common material for pens, it is easy to work with and it has a nice weight, compared to aluminum which is the other most common material for pens. Brass is my favorite not only for the weight, but also because it has the nice characteristic of oxidize over time, but not too much like copper for example, just a little and then it has a very nice smell ( I like it very much). I always say that brass is a live material, like wood.

LOCLEN Tekno 2 Ballpoint Pen Chrome
LOCLEN L3 Ballpoint Pen Black
LOCLEN L3 Brass Mechanical Pencil 0,7 mm
LOCLEN Nanetto Ballpoint Pen Black

 

Are you influenced by Italian tradition? Where do you find the inspiration?

Design innovation is part of the company philosophy, My first goal has always been to make something different to stand out from the millions of pens on the market which are all copying to each other. If you mean the Italian tradition in pens I would have to say that I am very far from that. I would never make a pen similar to Aurora, Montegrappa or Visconti. Different design has been the main reason why we were able to succeed in this very high competitive market.

Which difficulties do you encounter in producing your writing instruments?

The main problems we are facing now is to be able to keep up with production. All our pens are handmade which is also another trait of our company philosophy, we do not mass produce like most of the other brands. We are adding some more machines to our small factory, hopefully this will improve productivity. We are growing.

In Electa foutain pen you use a VAS system. Could you tell something more about this solution?

Electa is a very unique pen, the only one in the world in terms of design (it looks like a piston filler) and also technology. The Vibration Absorbing System VAS is and advanced and ingenious system that blocks the vibrations of the nib when rubbing on the paper to be transferred to the barrel. You won’t feel these vibrations because they are stopped by the three rubber rings that divide the barrel from the front section. In all other pens, front section and barrel are screwed to each other making one single component very rigid. On the Electa the connection between the front section and the barrel is made by rubber making the part more flexible.

LOCLEN Electa Brass Fountain Pen

To whom your products are dedicated?

To everyone who is passionate about writing and pens, and he or she is looking for something different and cool.

You have a quite unusual logo, is there any story behind it?

Goose is normally associated to fountain pens because of the feather, once they used to write with goose feather. My logo is a duck, not a goose, but it is close.

What do you feel or think when designing, and creating writing instruments when our life is full of new technologies? Is there a space for hand writing?

When I started this company I was keep telling myself that it wouldn’t had worked out because of the rising trend to write with electronic devices instead of hand writing, I was wrong. I discovered that there is a huge number of passionate people who still prefer hand writing and love to have a nice pen. I am also having the feeling that this number is rising and that a lot of people are going back to use fountain pens.

What do you want to say to Polish user of you writing instruments?

Thank you for your interest in our pens, we are a yang company in the writing industry but we are growing fast thank you to a rising number of passionate pen lovers who recognize in our products the two main traits of our philosophy: passion and design innovation.
Our goal for the Polish market is to find people who share these values and will enjoy to write with our pens.