About Kayu
Michal Klaška
DESIGNER AND FOUNDER OF THE BRAND I design pens and I love it. It took more than three and a half years to fine-tune everything to its current stage and to turn the humanitarian office mouse into a craftsman. And in retrospect, I'm still amazed at how much I'm evolving with Kayu myself. Pens are my life at the moment and it's beautiful.
Andrea Klašková
GRAPHICS My main job is the visual side of Kayu and I also take care of the production of packaging, prints and other invisible things around it. Outside of Kayu, I'm having fun with our daughter, gardening...
Jan Fronc
PRODUCTION
Kayu Milestones
We have definitely decided to go down the path of product sustainability. We are therefore working on third versions of Egino and 130 to meet our ideas of Originality, Resilience, Reparability, Responsibility and Truthfulness.
For mass production we are abandoning titanium and switching to more environmentally friendly metals: stainless steel, brass, bronze. We are improving the pen design to compensate for the higher weight of the metals used.
We are preparing the second development versions of Egino and Kuka, which will offer new comfort and improved usability. We are developing two new products, a groundbreaking pen and a system for filling markers and marker pens that could revolutionize recycling.We have launched a new pocket stainless steel pen, the Kayu Nikini.We have teamed up with a new partner, Honza Fronec, who has started making parts for us in his workshop near Brno.
We were approached by Centropen, a legend in the stationery industry, to redesign one of their products. The project was successfully completed by handing over the documentation and models for further development.We developed the second generation of the Kayu 130 pen, which is made of titanium and aerospace aluminium. We successfully completed the patent proceedings for our Kayu 130 and obtained Czech patent no. 307915.
We joined forces with Honza Vacl, a small-series metalworking enthusiast from IndividualCZ, to start producing a really high quality series of Kayu 130 pens. At the same time, this year we launched a third type of pen, the Kayu Kuka. This simple dip pen is mainly aimed at artists who love drawing or doodling, and we have reached the mark of 500 handmade pens.
After more than two years of hard work in the workshop, we took a moment to immerse ourselves in development and invented the new Kayu 130 pen.
At the end of summer this year we won our first really big order for Volkswagen Slovakia in the volume of more than 100 pens.
Later in October, we participated in our first year at Designblok, the elite design exhibition in the Czech Republic, and immediately received a nomination for the best new product of that year. We didn’t get the victory, but it was very nice to be among the top three.
In May 2015, after almost three years of development, learning the craft and fine-tuning all the processes, I was able to completely abandon my original profession and put everything on one card, Kaya.
This year my future wife, partner and great support, Andrejka, entered my life.
At the turn of 2012 and 2013 I decided to leave the office profession and become a fountain pen manufacturer.
