Montblanc, a legacy brand renowned for its mastery in luxury writing instruments, has continuously evolved to cater to the modern achiever. The brand embarked on a bold journey to merge the timeless elegance of handwriting with the cutting-edge digital experience of an e-ink device.
Over two years, we worked closely with Montblanc to shape the vision, define the digital identity, build the design system, craft the user experience, refine haptics, and support industrial design alongside their writing experts in Hamburg.
Digital Paper reimagines the art of writing for the modern age. It captures the emotion and nuance of pen on paper—from rubberised nibs that add weight to each stroke, to haptics tuned to echo the flow of ink—celebrating Montblanc's century-long dedication to the writing ritual.
To kick off the project, we spent a week embedded with the Montblanc team in Hamburg — where we explored the brand's rich history, delved into their archives, and interacted with early prototypes of the device. This immersion helped us further understand Montblanc's values, craft, and ambition for their new writing device.
We set out to capture the soulfulness of handwriting in a digital context. Inspired by Montblanc's long heritage in fine writing instruments, we explored four distinct visual territories to define the right direction. This exploration helped us narrow down to two core creative concepts, ultimately shaping the final visual identity.
Our goal was to bring the feel of ink on paper into an e-ink environment—preserving the natural imperfections, pressure, and personal expression that make handwriting uniquely human.
Values: Soulfulness, timelessness and simplicity.
Ligatures and handcrafted letterforms play a central role. By mimicking the organic flow and variation of handwritten strokes, typography becomes a bridge between analog craft and digital clarity.
Designing letterforms on paper allowed us to retain microscopic imperfections—the slight tremble of a line, the uneven taper. These qualities create a writing system that feels authentically “written” instead of generated.
The line embraces the craft and DNA of writing, with all its perfections and imperfections.
For over a hundred years, the figure 8 has been used by trained calligraphers to test the nibs at the start of every pen's journey. We've brought this iconic gesture to the experience as a way to introduce users to the feel of the device.
UI elements used repeatedly—such as pagination indicators or highlight states—carry subtle stroke variations to emulate ink pressure. Starting points, end points, and stroke widths adjust organically, reinforcing the tactile feel of handwriting throughout the interface.
This creates a system where even functional UI elements carry the warmth and rhythm of pen-on-paper writing.
Our icons reflect the essence of the line — capturing subtle imperfections from pen pressure and angle. While they nod to the tactile nature of handwriting, they remain clean and modern, balancing handcrafted warmth with UI clarity.
Our colour system is optimized for e-ink, using a refined grayscale palette to ensure clarity, contrast, and a quiet, premium feel.
The layout takes inspiration from Montblanc's symbolic 4810m height — using a 4/8/10 column grid to subtly embed the brand into the interface structure.
These are visual direction and references to guide the illustration style. We aim to strike a balance between function and emotion. Handwritten lines reflect the practical side of note-taking, while hand-sketched elements bring emotional depth and crafted sophistication.
We extended the Montblanc wordmark by adding Digital Paper beneath it, using design cues from traditional writing instruments. The 45-degree angles echo nib strokes, while varied stroke widths reflect pressure sensitivity. An ink-like brush texture ties it back to the feel of handwriting.
We defined the interaction model through research into existing e-ink devices and real-world handwriting behaviours.
The focus: an intuitive, unobtrusive flow that keeps writing at the centre. Interactions feel intentional yet effortless—always supporting the user's creative or practical task.
The onboarding experience mixes Montblanc's storytelling with light, playful moments. Instead of overwhelming users, it gently walks them through the core features — from how the writing feels to small nods to Montblanc's craft, like nib-testing gestures and pressure-sensitive strokes.
After lots of testing around flow, timing, and clarity, the walkthrough became both easy to follow and familiar right from the start.
The Montblanc emblem acts as a progress indicator, revealing itself step by step, creating a sense of ownership and connection to the brand and device.
The Home screen brings Montblanc's craftsmanship into a calm andminimal environment. Hand-drawn icons and fine linework add a subtle sense of tactility without distracting from the content. The layout stays open so notebooks, documents, and folders remain the clear focus.
A floating bottom toolbar provides the primary actions. When an item is selected, the toolbar intelligently shifts into contextual mode, revealing only the actions relevant to that selection. This approach keeps interactions simple and discoverable.
The writing environment is designed for full immersion. Tools remain hidden until needed, allowing the page to become the purest expression of digital handwriting.
A subtle brand reference lives in the toolbar icon, where the interaction echoes the twist mechanism of certain Montblanc pens, tying back to the physical rituals of writing:
Hollow dot = tools hidden
Filled dot = tools active
Throughout the process, we worked closely with the development team to ensure design feasibility and technical alignment. We made sure the final product stayed true to the vision while being technically sound.
The result is a sleek, intuitive device that preserves Montblanc's craftsmanship while embracing modern digital technology, setting a new benchmark in luxury digital writing. It embodies Montblanc's philosophy that everyone can leave their mark, offering the next generation the same tactile precision and joy — now in a more seamless, digital form.