Press Release
Alexis Zapata Is Honored with the Silver A' Design Award for Lumin Mechanical Pencil in Art and Stationery Supplies Design
Alexis Zapata honored for art and stationery supplies design by the international grand jury of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2025 /DesignNewswire/ Lumin Mechanical Pencil by Alexis Zapata, designed for Lumin, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Art and Stationery Supplies Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The award was conferred within the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Silver A' Design Award Explained
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
Regarding Lumin Mechanical Pencil
Lumin is a design made 100 percent from alluminium. Without a mechanism, the elasticity of the material is used to hold the graphite. It is produced using different numerical control machining processes, with a manual finish in each one of them. Identified with its engraved serial number and accompanied by packaging that authenticates its originality. Its designer wanted to represent in Lumin the emotion of emptiness. A fragment of the brilliance that lives in each person, not perfect but authentic. In this way Lumin invites introspection and personal reflection.
About Alexis Zapata
Alexis Zapata works as a freelance designer. Although today, at 43 years old, he works developing various products and furniture for the local market in Buenos Aires, his greatest satisfaction and passion has been being able to design motorcycles for Pininfarina and Keeway Benelli, as well as a 42-foot yacht for Sealine. However, in recent years, emotion has played a fundamental role in not only designing, but also putting his soul into it. Making an emotion tangible, that of emptiness, gave birth to the object he presents today... Lumin.
Award Record
This recognition makes Alexis Zapata a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Art and Stationery Supplies Design Award
The A' Art Supplies Design Award is an international industrial design competition recognizing best art supplies by leading brands and manufacturers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to art supplies designers, stationery designers, industrial design studios and art supplies brands from all countries. Typical entries include brushes, paints, sketchbooks, pencils, pastels and easels. The awarded art supply designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/art-supplies
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/165681
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/165681
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!165681
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/361017
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://www.instagram.com/luminportaminas
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Lumin Mechanical Pencil
- Function
- Mechanical Pencil
- Category
- Art and Stationery Supplies Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Packaging & Retail and Arts
- Colors
- Lavender, Gray, Dim Gray, Light Gray and Dark Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Lumin
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Alexis Zapata
- Country
- Argentina
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2024 - 2025
- Design ID
- #165681
Credits
- Image Credits
- Photographer Federico Ariel Serrano, 2025.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Lumin represents an emotion, of emptiness, to give rise to the new. A fragment of light, not perfect but authentic, that shines one's own brilliance. Materialize the intangible. In its packaging, emptiness is symbolized. Where, for the light to find us, we must find that breaking point. The pencil, what must always shine, protect itself, defend...Education. "Alumina, light that propagates through the emptiness. Lumin, born from absence."
- Inspiration
- It was an exploration of personal introspection of my emotions. Lumin was the key to a new stage. It was my breaking point, to change my reality.
- Research
- The initial idea was to create a mechanical pencil using discarded aluminum. Information was collected on different mechanical pencils and their possible mechanisms. At that time, as a teacher in a model and prototype workshop, I had access to lathes where the first six prototypes were created. They were so popular that I began researching how to mass-produce them, since making them individually is time-consuming. Today, it has become a coveted object for designers, architects, and artists. I would like to make a more democratic product, making it accessible to everyone, but production costs are high for the quantities I can make.
- Challenge
- From 2017 to 2022, I was a professor at a university in the model and prototype workshop. After the pandemic, classes were taught online, so the workshop became unnecessary. This made me think about how education changed, and today I think the pencil was an act of protest to defend it. It wasn't easy to find a CNC lathe operator willing to make only 100 units at first; they usually order 1,000 units. Costs also increased due to devaluation in my country. Even the cost of the packaging was high, given the small quantity, so I had to do it using digital offset. I made virtually no profit, nor was I interested in making any.
- Realization and Technology
- Lumin is an exclusive design, made 100 percent from aluminum. Stripped of any mechanism, it uses the elasticity of the material to hold the graphite. It is produced using different numerical control machining processes, with a manual finish in each of them. Identified with its engraved serial number and accompanied by the packaging that authenticates it.
- Operation and Interaction
- Release the lead from the packaging by pushing the tip of the mechanical pencil inward from one side to eject it from the other side and pulling to remove it. Do not open, disassemble, or break the packaging. The lead is 5,5 mm and is adjusted when released, vertically with the tip pointing down, always opening slightly to the sides. Hold the lead with both hands on a horizontal surface to prevent the lead from falling out. If it has been held for a long time, you may need to open it and simultaneously press the lead on a horizontal surface to release it from its internal grip. The lead should fall freely when the clip is opened.
- Project Duration and Location
- At the end of 2020, 6 functional prototypes were made and the pre series was launched in July 2023. It participated in Buenos Aires, Argentina in INNOVAR 2023 with the ID 23902 and Sello Buen Diseño 2025 with the ID 5834.
- Specifications
- Mechanical pencil, material aluminum alloy 2011, weight 90 grams, dimensions 100 mm x 19 mm, between the faces of the hexagon Packaging material 300 gr illustration, printing full color, finish matte polypropylene on both sides, die cut digital, finish 2 double sided, dimensions 140 mm x40 mm x 40 mm
- Keywords
- emotion, intangible, emptyness, authentic, light, absence, aluminum, alumina
