The stars of this story, with F.I.L.A., two large organisation, known then, grown up and still at the top: Design Group Italia and TBWA. Design first and foremost: in addition to a pen that writes well, a beautiful pen that writes well needed to be created, creating an emotional bond with consumers. How did the idea of the Tratto Pen as we know it come about? Anty Pansera asked the person who had that idea: Marco Del Corno, Designer and Founder of Design Group Italia; Maria Gemma Del Corno, Edgardo Angelini and Sigurdur Thorsteinsson, Designers.

A mandatory idea

Anty Pansera: "Marco Del Corno, designer who began to work on this product, conduct research and design it thirty years ago. How did this relationship start, how did you start working on this product?".

Marco Del Corno, Industrial Designer and founder of Design Group Italia: "Tratto Pen is the expression of the desire for something new, something to be introduced to the market with a well-defined physiognomy, not like those existent. At that time I liked to design very compact objects and, moreover, it is a pen, an element made up of a body and cap, thus there was little to work with. If it had been a car, I could have made it longer, wider, but that wasn't possible...thus even harder to design".

Anty Pansera: "Maria Gemma Del Corno, who often worked with Design Group Italia in different roles, not just with her husband but with the entire team Del Corno built up over the years. What was your contribution to the Tratto Pen design?".

Maria Gemma Del Corno, Graphic Designer: "I contributed to the design of the Tratto Pen cap. One day, Marco said: "We need ideas for the cap". We had this linear object, without any asperity, without any transformation...thus making the cap special was a necessity. I worked hard on the design and, at one point, presented three ideas: the pope, the pencil and the bowler. We picked the bowler".

From material

Anty Pansera: "The first materials, the first production problems, the first risks and first successes. How did production go for the first Tratto Pens?".

Edgardo Angelini: "The first series of Tratto Pens, and later the Tratto Clip, had plastic bodies, methacrylate, which had innovative aesthetic and mouldability features. Practically, we can only now with our current know-how say that that material let ink evaporate, since permeable to the solvents used for the ink. Thus it had a rather short lie and soon forced F.I.L.A. to use another, the one still used today: polypropylene".

..to colour

Anty Pansera: "Marco del Corno, tells us that you were set on the colour. What we, now like before, perceive as brown, you defined as "asphalt colour" and forced it on F.I.L.A. as an even more qualifying element to better identify the product. Do you remember this internal battle between the designer and the company?".

Marco Del Corno: "F.I.L.A. loved the four classical colours and, as usual, had sales fears: "this type of colour won't sell". But no, it was well-accepted by the public and even resolved some problems: changing the body colour, it was enough to change the colour of the rear caps to emphasise ink".

The first clip

Anty Pansera: "Tratto Clip is the first variation, Tratto Pen's first sister. It was introduced just a few years later and is a different object, almost more precious. What distinguishes it?".

Edgardo Angelini: "The goal was to keep a family feeling with Tratto Pen while achieving a more personal and richer pen through small changes to its shape and proportions. The pen thus became much shorter and a bit fatter and the characteristic and special clip was added: at that time, clips usually emerged from the end of the cap. This one, on the other hand, came out of the centre, with a band that encompassed it, a sort of forehead at the centre of the pen. When put in your pocket, most of the object is seen and this makes it highly visible".

Marco Del Corno: "Usually a clip is subtly inserted. Instead, I designed this big ring because I wanted it to stand out".

Edgardo Angelini: "Naturally, the first Tratto Clip series was created with a linear-shaped metal clip distanced from the body to permit it to be placed in a pocket. What's more, it had a small circular hollow. In the next version, in the 80's, when moving from the four colours to the sole "asphalt", this hollow was used to mark the colour. It thus became a highly recognisable element".

Then matic

Anty Pansera: "First Tratto Clip, then Tratto Matic. The Tratto family was expanding. Why was this needed?".

Edgardo Angelini: "Tratto Pen gave lie to an entire series of pens, mainly conceived to expand the product range following different writing methods and tips. Tratto Matic (1994) challenged the low-cost ballpoint pen world. The goal was to sell it at one thousand Italian Lira, and we reached that goal. High identification with the clip area was born with the Tratto Matic, made more visible and very mechanical. All clip pen springs are generally placed at the base but this makes it invisible when held in your pocket or hand. With Tratto Matic, we placed it at the top to make it highly visible, highly mechanical, hi-tech, with a special sound, a continuous tic tac that made it immediately recognisable".

Anty Pansera: "Sigurdur Thorsteinsson is the designer of Tratto Matic. What was the creation process and why is it still remembered, known and purchased today?".

Sigurdur Thorsteinsson: "Tratto Matic was the first product I designed for Design Group Italia and it hit the market in 1992 or 1993. I worked hard on it, refining the product many times before I achieved these curves. I was inspired by an existent Tratto product: it was a technique popular in the 50's. I dug up the old and adapted it to the new. To make it unique, I adopted an excellent trick to make everyone nervous, the tic tac of the tip that enters and exits with a sole gesture".