‘a man in a pen, walking’ (top) and ‘a man in a pen, swimming’ floating pens, by satoshi endo and taku sato

long fascinated by the ‘miniature theatre world’ inside floating pen souvenirs, satoshi endo, head of japan’s ASCII research institute, set upon ‘a project for making a floating pen at least once in my life‘. a collaboration with designer taku sato led to the development of ‘a man in a pen, walking’ and ‘a man in a pen, swimming’.

liquid-filled floating pens were first invented by danish company eskesen in 1946. nonetheless endo’s interpretation involved over six months of research and testing in order to create a smooth, 6-frame simulation modeled after traditional slit animation techniques. ‘a man in a pen, walking’ uses the video-captured images of a real person, digitally processed.

satoshi endo + taku sato: floating animation pen the products recreate the look of traditional slit animation, a technique which creates animation effects by placing a special type of picture behind a striped precision screen

satoshi endo + taku sato: floating animation pen ‘a man in a pen, walking’ uses the video-captured images of a real person digitally processed into a 6-frame animation

satoshi endo + taku sato: floating animation pen creator satoshi endo

video demo of the pens

designboom has received this project from our new ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication.we have already acquired many submissions, so keep on the lookout for more of your projects to be published in the coming days!