Realboy push pins

Hand painted Pinocchio-inspired push pins.

Overview

Use the little liar's noses to decorate your walls and hold your stuff to corkboards.

Serial number on each pack.

Specification

  • Injection moulded (in white) in Cornwall, England
  • Hand-painted
  • ABS plastic (body), Nickel-plated Steel (pin), Cork, Styrene (boxes), Paper (label)
  • Pin size : 31mm x 10mm x 7mm
  • Boxed size/weight : 25mm x 44mm x 14mm / 7g

Process

Nickel-plated steel pins are over-moulded in white ABS by a specialist low-volume injection moulding company in Cornwall, UK (tooling cut and polished from brass.)

Once the raw moldings arrive in at the studio, the faint ‘witness-lines’ are removed, with the edge of a scalpel. They’re then brush painted by hand and finished with a semi-gloss, clear top-coat. Packaged in high-quality boxes, they are presented inside the box using push-fit cork (cut to blocks in-house, by jig & knife). They're individually numbered by hand. We hope they are some of the most finely crafted thumb tacks that have ever existed.

Short film documenting the making process behind the first release of Realboy push pins below (or watch on vimeo here.)

Launch

The boys were exhibited to the public for the first time at Designboom mart, as part of Tokyo Designers Week 2012 and have since been sold exclusively online and as part of crowdfunding campaigns.

Version history

  • Red : 1,000 x packs of 2 (SOLD OUT)
  • Gold : 7 x singles (SOLD OUT)
  • Green : 3 x singles (SOLD OUT)
  • Black : 200 x singles

PechaKucha

Duncan did a PechaKucha talk on the Real Boy Push Pin project at Tokyo PechaKucha Night in 2015. The 20x20 presentation can be viewed at pechakucha.com

Partner project

The red version of our little lad pins were the focus of our Remote-Control Pop Up Shop project. Watch the short film below :

Awards

Platinum A’design Award winner (2012 – 2013) more info

Safety

Small and sharp. Not for children.

Featured projects...

View all projects