PNWCI Collection | Luka Allen - Industrial Design Portfolio

Design Direction ● Tantogatan

Luxurious and Jewel-Like

A category which features colors, materialities, and patterns that are very popular at the moment. Cool colors, iridescence, organic wavy patterns, figuring, chatoyance. Materials that scream luxury, but in a way that isn't over the top and highlights their natural beauty.

Design Direction-
Tantogatan

Design Direction ● Bestick

Black/White & Accent Color

Leaning towards the "Gentleman's Carry" category of fine art knife. Research determined that black was the most popular color by far. Knives with simple yet tasteful visuals were preferred by 96.7% of the survey respondents.

Design Direction-
Bestick

Design Direction ● Nacka

Vintage Nautical

This is a theme not often found in fine art knives. This direction pays homage to the background of the knife's name, as Nacka is a smaller sea-side municipality in Sweden where the maker's family hails from. Would showcase more vintage materials with a story.

Design Direction-
Nacka

PNWCI

The Pacific Northwest Custom Knife Invitational (PNWCI) Collection is a set of three fine art folding knives for Lindblade Knives to present at the 2025 PNWCI knife show. Due to time constraints, only two of the three knives have been manufactured as they are fully handmade.

This project consisted of a comprehensive research project alongside the color, material, and finish design.

I have full permission to share this information with the general public.

Jump to Final Design

my role

Design Researcher

CMF Designer

project

Freelance for

timeline

4 Weeks Research

5 Weeks Design

tools

Adobe Suite

Figma

Brief from Lindblade

Aid the knife maker in designing the next serialized version of each of his three folding knife models (Tantogatan, Bestick, Nacka).

Tantogatan

Bestick

Nacka

Discovery and ideation phases include market research and creative exploration in order to identify materials & material combinations for each build along with blade steel, construction approach, embellishments, machining/laser details, and finishing methods or techniques.

Execution phase includes preliminary production steps such as digital mockups/renderings, material sourcing/procurement.

How might we determine the interests of fine art knife collectors and design accordingly while staying true to brand?

Research

Objectives

Determine current and emerging CMF (color, material, finish) trends in fine art folding knives

Determine the interests of the target sales demographic

Identify opportunities for experimentation and uniqueness while staying true to brand identity

Methodology

Market research

Interview with custom knifemaker

150 response survey with multiple choice and write-in answers

Some of the raw data; click to expand. Full research project can be made available upon request.

Main Insights

Users prefer super steels and high quality damascus

Rare, luxurious, and vintage materials are highly coveted

Users like when the build or materials have a theme/story

Users often prefer simple, elegant designs

There is currently a heavy bias toward cool tones

Refinined Concepts

Not to scale

Spotlighted Initial Concepts

Not to scale

Near the end of the project Lindblade released a new design: the Nacka Mini. He wanted the design for the Nacka to be adapted to the new Mini instead. After doing so, I revised the materials based upon what we had already sourced and received.