The Craft of the Ordinary
Artefacts of meaning, communities with soul & forgotten things.
A stray video, crafted with care, led to a little exploration of today’s piece. Pause a few moments with me, to think about objects made with a very particular aesthetic, a considered worldview (and hefty bill). Savour the soulfully made piece that traverses an entire country. Peck at the rest.
And have a fine weekend.
Craft in The Ordinary: Of everyday enchantment.
Friday Found: A lovely day.
A Tune & A Photo: Forgotten things.
With: a new colour, stock imagery, catching a con lady.
1. Craft in The Ordinary
There are moments in the launch film for The Seneca where I feel caressed by its words and gentle imagery. It also gives me pause. The light is soft, the camera likes to linger, the visuals are seeped in nature. An instrument tries gently to take centrestage, but instead the words do, effortlessly . “Freedom lies in accepting our fate, while reaching out for our dreams anyway”, it says, stoically. The film moves with deliberate slowness, each frame saturated with casual intention. It is less product advertisement and more visual poem.
Drawn to what it is about, I eventually marvel at what it is for.
This is a launch film for a computer keyboard.
The Seneca is “a keyboard dream from the future”, a custom made instrument made for keyboard enthusiasts and humans with a penchant for the crafted, or the desire for the special. Named after the Stoic philosopher who advocated for mindful living and finding pleasure in simplicity, The Seneca looks to embody this philosophy in physical form.
It fuses California industrial design with Danish engineering, building on a deep framework for understanding electro-mechanical systems, built around an obscure input technology that emerged in Japan over 40 years ago.
It will cost something starting at US$3600.
“A middle finger to the aesthetic homogeneity and economic over-optimisation of 21st century life.”
Ryan Norbauer, its creator, is building an exquisite typing device, yes; but also crafting a meditation on the spirit of optimistic technology, against the relentless pursuit of economic scale and the sameness it engenders.
In an age where most of our tools have been reduced to sleek, identical slabs of glass and metal, it represents something of a resistance. This handcrafted mechanical keyboard transforms the most utilitarian object on your desk into something approaching… ritual? Its materiality speaks to a growing desire for objects that serve a function, but also create an experience.
The Seneca aims to elevate typing to an act of quiet luxury—typing as meditation, as craft, as intention. It is a philosophical statement, disguised as a consumer product.
An Artisanal Wave
The Seneca isn't alone in this curious cultural space. Across categories we will find, if we choose to look, ripples of what might be called ‘artisanal utility’. These objects share characteristics: they're crafted with unusual attention to material and form, presented through considered and aware storytelling, occupying a price point that signals exclusivity but doesn’t shout it; and perhaps most importantly, they aim to transform daily actions into moments of design awareness.
Consider the Analog by Ugmonk- a physical task management system with cards, that deliberately rejects digital efficiency in favour of tangible interaction. Its creator, Jeff Sheldon, speaks of wanting to "design and breathe life into products that last a lifetime and then some."
The Hinoki wood bath mat releases gentle aromatics when stepping out of the shower, turning a mundane transition into a sensory moment; its artisans have honed their ‘monotsukuri’, a method that enhances the quality and function of the Hinoki wood.
Something as simple as the HMM Mugr reimagines the quotidian coffee mug by joining ceramic and wood in an unexpected marriage of textures. The daily ritual of the first sip is caressed by a team that ‘interpret artefacts in a heartfelt way.’
The Nakaya Urushi fountain pen is hand-lacquered using centuries-old Japanese ways. Its craftspeople have spent decades perfecting their urushi lacquering technique. The pens take three or six or more months of labour, built upon half a century of accumulated skill and knowledge. The pen itself becomes a vessel not just for ink, but for this lineage of expertise.
There can be incredulity at this level of obsession over details most users would never consciously notice. Yet, that which is needed and that which must be made, may not always be the same thing.
None of these objects claim to revolutionise their respective categories through technological innovation. Rather, they exist around a different lens altogether: the quality of experience.
On paper, nothing about this makes any sense. It is over the top. Needlessly lavish. Exuberantly irrational. And that is the point. _introduction to The Seneca
Artefacts of Resistance
There's something quietly rebellious about this trend. Embracing these objects is not just buying products, we’re gently told. We're making statements about our relationship with technology, with consumption, with our environment, with our inner selves. Each carefully considered pen, lamp, or device serves as a tiny bulwark against the tide of disposability that characterises much of our culture.
Last year, I wrote about how Ffern hails from a place which is the opposite of transactional, disingenuous, opportunistic, immediate. It releases four fragrances a year, at the equinox and solstice, working with “the rhythms of the seasons”.
Meze’s planar high-end headphones with their lush tone, premium assembly and heirloom feel, come from a team who believes, “the true essence of life is in the now.”
The Lumio Book Lamp opens like a volume of poetry, casting light from what appears to be pages. Its aim is to “to push back against the over-stimulated and rushed world we live in— carefully made creations that spark delight, re-engage the senses and remind us what it means to be human.”
Retrofuturism is deep in the soul of the Seneca, because it is born of, and hopes to capture a feeling- nostalgic optimism for the future.
Retrofuturist design is a small act of defiance— a way to reconnect artistically (and sentimentally) with a time when technology seemed to offer a tomorrow that would always be better than today.
Each item reconsiders what objects can be, and how we might interact with them.
What is also often intriguing about these, is how they're presented. Ffern’s content breathes a love for craft & expression, much like how a sense of craft is central to their process of creating fragrances. The launch film for The Seneca feels more like a meditative philosophy piece than a product announcement. It lingers on texture, light, sound; it states a mood, a belief, an ethos. These products have a considered storytelling aesthetic, often reflecting a sense of craft that is central to their process.
‘GRABA STRICA TREABA’ · Romanian saying: Good things take time. _from Meze
The Uncomfortable Question of Access
Of course, there's an elephant in this beautifully appointed room: price.
The Seneca keyboard will cost me approximately the same as two of the computers I am writing this on, with a tablet thrown in (“costs be damned”, says its maker).
Take Astell&Kern’s ‘A&ultima SP3000’, a high-end digital audio player. A hefty chunk of stainless steel and circuitry that costs as much as some family vacations. A hand-lacquered Nakaya Urushi fountain pen is custom made, and easily carries a four-figure price tag.
In fact, in a fascinating essay on himself, Ryan Norbauer questions the very subculture around high end keyboards he is part of, thus, “What is it about an expensive input device that looks like a 1980s idea of a keyboard from 2050, that could turn it into an emotional oasis of glamour and blissful escape for so many enthusiasts across the globe?”
For many, these price points won’t just seem absurd— they’re offensive. Why pay $100 for Analog's paper and wood task cards set, when a pack of Post-its costs a few bucks? Reactions to this kind of product often involve accusations of pretension and elitism. Cynics would point to status signalling—these are just the latest totems of class distinction, ‘Veblen goods’ that derive value precisely from their unnecessarily high prices.
There's truth here, certainly. It's hard not to see some of these as exercises in creating artificial scarcity and desire. Equally, it is unfair to paint them all with the same tin-plated brush. Such critique might miss something essential— that they represent fundamentally different relationships with materiality itself.
In every choice I have optimized only for joy, nostalgia, and magic. _Ryan Norbauer
Value Beyond Function
What some of these creations offer isn't merely function, but presence. They ask us to slow down, to notice, to engage fully with our physical world. In an era where efficiency and convenience are holy grails, there's something quietly radical about choosing an inefficient path, the more difficult option, the object that prompts attention rather than fading into the background.
Norbauer owns this, “Of course, through the unfeeling lens of economic efficiency, whimsical products of this kind make no sense. They are irrational, gratuitous, a needless frivolity that doesn't scale. And this is why, in my view, they are also one of the few ways in which the fruits of the modern world can be turned back to remediate some of its many aesthetic indignities.”
These objects insist that how we do things matters just as much as what we accomplish. They suggest that the quality of our attention shapes the quality of our lives. They reject the premise that faster and cheaper inherently equals better.
Everyday Enchantment
Perhaps what these curiosities ultimately offer is a form of everyday enchantment— moments of wonder, beauty, and intention scattered throughout our daily routines. Norbauer talks of “the pursuit of aesthetic transcendence as an escape from the manifold frustrations and disappointments of everyday life.”
The tension fraught in our perceptions of these objects circles around some form of the question- are they cynical luxury plays dressed in philosophical garb, or impassioned attempts to reframe and rediscover our relationship with the physical world?
The answer, of course, lies somewhere in the messy middle.
Prestige and status are undoubtedly at work. Some purchase these more as markers of taste than anything else. And yes, there's something conversely problematic about finding meaning through consumption, however artisanal. Wouldn’t it be better to strip away even this layer of material possession, to connect with our world and our selves more nakedly?
Yet, to dismiss the Seneca keyboard and its kindred objects as snobbish playthings or repackaged consumerism, runs the chance of ignoring their potential as small acts of resistance. In a world of planned obsolescence, disposability and buying to buy, choosing something designed to last, to age gracefully, represents a different set of values. Some of these creators are pushing back, however modestly, against the acceleration of contemporary life.
They represent peculiar intersections of nostalgia and futurism, craft and technology, function and art. They remind us that utility needn't be divorced from beauty, efficiency mustn’t always supersede experience, that objects can be more than mere tools.
Our lives are increasingly mediated by screens and algorithms. There lies a profound appeal in experiences that insist on their own materiality, not just occupying physical space but also affecting it.
That this intentionality comes with a price tag is inevitable. That this often limits access is unfortunate. That it is something we could look for in our lives anyway, is worth considering.
· The Seneca · Analog by Ugmonk · Nakaya Urushi · Ffern · Astell & Kern · Meze Audio · Lumio · Mugr · Hinoki Mat · Norbauer on Norbauer ·
*I receive no fees, affiliate or otherwise, if you click on these links and/or consider purchasing and/or proceed to acquire any of these. I will expect an email, though!
2. Friday Find: One Truth
A Lovely Day with Guinness in America.
In a time when truth has become entirely subjective, to say “One Truth” is timely, powerful, yet runs the risk of overreaching. I am not from the USA, but it feels like this brand communication has reached just right.
Guinness chooses not to highlight its Irish persona, instead leaning right in to being the beverage of community. It wants to belong, to feel rooted ; this messaging is as far from an imported brand as can be.
The film feels like a documentary in a 90sec montage, as the Irish beer brand and Uncommon Studio traverse all fifty states of the country, partnering with Magnum Photos to hand us a textured rendition of regular people in America. Set to Paolo Nutini’s evocative song, Iron Sky, ‘A Lovely Day for Guinness’ is meant to shine a light on the 250 year old brand’s “core belief in human goodness and the power of communion.”
The campaign has 50 original executions, one for every state.
It exudes soul and ambition.
~ · ~
· Diageo shares more on the philosophy and the communities included in this campaign · Andrew Tindall looks at it through the Global / Local/ Foreign lens of framing a brand ·
· A stunning fourteen directors · Uncommon Creative Studio · Production- Hand of God , Birth ·
3. A tune, a photo.
Midival Punditz on the IPL
It doesn't have a name, there are no mentions of it online, and its never showcased. But IPL watchers will recognise (with varying levels of enthusiasm) this tune. I was amazed to discover it was originally composed over a decade ago, by an electronic band whose music I very much enjoy- Midival Punditz. It appears it was not on their radar either!
"We had no recollection of [making] it initially," says Tapan Raj, one half of the group. No online sources point out that they made the track either. After I sent the clip above to Raj, he combed through his emails and confirmed that the BCCI commissioned them to come up with a theme for the tournament in 2014.
The song is barely a theme track- unnamed, uncredited and generally used in broadcasts, in a way that is now largely wallpaper. Tapan Raj is no cricket fan, clearly, and was oblivious to the fact that what Midival Punditz made over a decade ago, is played about half a dozen times on the broadcast of every match.
So Here’s Johnny!
The original stock photo from ‘The Shining’ has finally been found. Retired British academic Alasdair Spark and New York Times journalist Aric Toler went in search of the iconic photo we see at the end of the 1980s cult hit. In Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King story, Jack Nicholson’s character Jack Torrance is seen in an old image framed on one of the hotel walls. (It spurs debate about the meaning and the ending, but that’s another story).
It has been revealed the original photo was taken by the now defunct Topical Press Agency at a St. Valentine’s Day Ball in the Royal Palace Hotel, London, on February 14, 1921.
At ease, then.
Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting).
Read: A woman at the centre of Netflix documentary ‘Con Mum’ was found and charged with fraud in Singapore. “The victims only realised that they had been cheated after Hanna was featured in Con Mum, which became available on Netflix on Mar 25.”
Read: "It just feels like I have to sort through so much more junk than I used to.” Designers say AI is making stock image sites unusable.
Know: Scientists claim to have found colour no one has seen before. Wait, what?
Iced coffee beckons.
"A watch tells the time; a $20,000 Rolex tells people you’ve got issues”
_Christopher Ryan in his book ‘Civilized to Death’.