Let's use AI to recreate a weird pen

and how to do it yourself

Here’s a secret for you, reader: Substack’s greatest feature is free, unlimited AI nightmare image generation.

If you set up an account (free, necessary to use the AI) to subscribe to this blog (also free, not necessary), you can use this thing whether you intend to ever have your own blog or not. Just set up a draft blog post, click the little picture button in the top toolbar, select “generate,” and then BUCKLE UP because hoo boy it’s weird.

To demonstrate, today we are going to take some of the ways I described the Rotring Core in my review and plug them into the AI as prompts to see what it spits out.

The Core has become one of my favorite weird pen designs; there is something really human about how it totally captures the spirit of Y2K design in an instantly recognizable way. So let’s find out if Substack’s AI can recreate the manic, messy joy of this bonkers implement using my descriptions of it.

For reference, here’s my Core Balium—this is what we’re trying to recreate:

Prompt #1

"a fountain pen with an orange-on-orange color scheme best described as “Y2K mescaline bender”.”

a fountain pen with an orange-on-orange color scheme best described as “Y2K mescaline bender”

Feel like the AI went a different way with the “orange-on-orange” thing. Boring, although adding three clips to the pen was a nice touch. I also want to give it partial credit for the second pen with the staggered grip but I think this is probably a mistake instead of a subtle reference to the Core’s weird recessed grip—based on the outcome of last week’s “Jason Statham punching a shark” pictures I don’t think subtlety is the AI’s strength.

Prompt #2

“the Pontiac Aztek of pens”

the pontiac aztek of pens

You’re not really trying here, man.

Prompt #3

“the pen you would use to sign the lease for your fourth rock ‘n rollerblade rink in the tri-state area”

the pen you would use to sign the lease for your fourth rock ‘n rollerblade rink in the tri-state area

Adding a fake lease was kind of a literal reading of this. Overall a rather depressing picture, although it’s kind of fun the pen is radioactive. Also points for having the lease look like an illustration from a Kafka essay on how Bureaucracy is the Real Villain instead of some standard Lorem Ipsum filler.

Prompt #4

“a fountain pen that was designed by being aged in a barrel of Code Red Mountain Dew for eighteen months and then left to cure on a beach in Ibiza that was subleased from the Vengaboys”

a fountain pen that was designed by being aged in a barrel of Code Red Mountain Dew for eighteen months and then left to cure on a beach in Ibiza that was subleased from the Vengaboys

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. This looks nothing like the Core but the pen does look cool and the dystopian Mountain Dew can is fun. For some reason this picture reminds me of something Narwhal would do. I would buy this.

Prompt #5

“the pen you would bring to pitch Bang Energy on a new flavor concept called Dubstep Blorp Blorp.”

the pen you would bring to pitch Bang Energy on a new flavor concept called Dubstep Blorp Blorp

Not really a pen but definitely gives off an insanity ferret vibe, so that’s nice. I like that the main “pen” looks like it says “Blorp” on it.

Prompt #6

“Giving a pen to your best friend when your best friend is Guy Fieri and then taking it back when he’s like “no thanks that’s a bit much.””

Giving a pen to your best friend when your best friend is Guy Fieri and then taking it back when he’s like “no thanks that’s a bit much.”

YES. I love how (1) there are two Guy Fieris (2) they are sharing a pizza topped with pasta and (3) the pen is made of Left Guy’s thumb and is also exploding. I think we’re getting closer to the right energy.

Prompt #7

“a pen that has a tribal tattoo and a huge cap that looks like it could double as a socket wrench for assembling a Razor Scooter, Xtreme Edixion”

a pen that has a tribal tattoo and a huge cap that looks like it could double as a socket wrench for assembling a Razor Scooter, Xtreme Edixion

What? No. This should be the result for “a Montegrappa special edition that costs a million dollars and is only sold at the Harvey Nichols at the Mall of the Emirates to cool young sheiks.”

Not even close, but obviously I would also buy this one.

Prompt #8

“a rubberized pen you would use when you are blacklight bowling or blacklight rock climbing or blacklight listening to Alice Deejay”

a rubberized pen you would use when you are blacklight bowling or blacklight rock climbing or blacklight listening to Alice Deejay

OK, it looks like we peaked with the Guy Fieri one. Is this pen floating? Yes, and that’s obviously great. But this looks like an ad for an IKEA PENFLORP, not a Rotring Core.

Conclusion

The AI is not good at making the Rotring Core.

I mean, just to keep myself honest in case my prompts were somehow not clear enough, I also asked it to make “a Rotring Core Balium fountain pen.” Here are the four options it gave me:

Or, put otherwise, the AI is actually pretty OK at designing a generic fountain pen and not so much at making a weird one. For the overall pen design world this is probably not a great thing—generic stuff is mass-market stuff—but it does feel like good news for designers and fans of niche aesthetics.

But try it out yourself! See if you can prompt it to get something better and let me know in the comments.