Kodak Pen
Role
Solo Designer
Exercise
Brand Translation
Source Brand
Kodak
Year
2025
Design a writing instrument
for a specific brand.
Present visuals demonstrating a brand's consistency, authenticity, and image strength — then apply those insights to an unrelated product category. The brief: make a writing instrument that styles the image of the selected brand as a real, functional product.
Brand DNA
Before any product sketching began, Kodak's identity was broken into three pillars — the rules that needed to survive translation into a completely different object.
Proportion Study
Kodak film cameras share a consistent asymmetrical composition that balances the hierarchy of volumes. The camera box length equals the top plate length — but the top plate height is consistently around 5/16 of the camera's overall proportions.
5/16
Top plate height vs. overall camera proportion
1:1
Camera box length to top plate length
Off-center
Asymmetrical balance reserves room for flash and viewfinder
Materials & Details
Design Understanding
By using the rules obtained from the design language breakdown we can understand better the key elements to the brand and its application on different bodies.
Ideation
Sketching with borrowed rules.
Every sketch iteration applied the proportion rules derived from the camera analysis directly — designing the pen as if it were governed by the same volumetric hierarchy.
Ideation
Three sketch generations: the first imitates Kodak's color-block divisions with a metallic frame and open void; the second simplifies based on physical testing; the third adjusts features for real part assembly.
One product. Three lights. Infinite setups.
Reflection
What translates.
What doesn't.
Color, proportion ratio and overall language can translate in a more simplified way, therefore core aspect such as basic geometry, color and material do work in a relatively small object.
Small details can be incorporated but they might overcomplex the manufacturing of the product and therefore take away the simplicity for which the brand is known for, ration and asymmetry do not translate very well in such vertical thin format.
Eber Zamudio
ID Portfolio
Kodak Pen