CW&T

Objects nobody needs and everyone wants. Machined like clockwork, hand-assembled, sold in minutes. The joy of the perfect object, by two people in a Brooklyn workshop.

Che-Wei Wang is an architect and programmer. Taylor Levy is a filmmaker. They meet in art school, fall in love, and in 2009 open a workshop in Brooklyn. Not a startup, not a design agency - a workshop. With machine tools. Their first project: the Pen Type-A. A pen machined from a solid titanium block, designed to hold a Pilot Hi-Tec-C cartridge - the pen of choice for designers and writing obsessives. They launch it on Kickstarter in 2011, the platform is still young. The Pen Type-A becomes the 6th most funded campaign of the era. What follows is a series of improbable objects, all machined to micron-level tolerances. A timer that fits in your pocket. A pen whose retraction mechanism is so precise you can hear it click with the crispness of clockwork. A clock that completes one full rotation in a hundred years - 'A Clock for the Rest of Your Life.' Each object is hand-assembled in the Brooklyn workshop. No outsourcing. Che-Wei machines, Taylor designs the experience. Carryology dubs them 'The Joy Engineers.' That's exactly it. Their objects don't solve urgent problems. Nobody 'needs' a $120 pen. But when you pick it up, feel the titanium's weight, hear the perfect click, you understand. It's machined joy. In 2022, the Cooper Hewitt - America's national design museum, Smithsonian-affiliated - awards them the National Design Award for Product Design. Same honor roll as Dieter Rams, the Eames, Jony Ive. For a two-person workshop in Brooklyn, it's dizzying. On enthusiast communities, CW&T is a cult. A user posts a review after 6 years of daily use of the Pen Type-B: 'Machining tolerances are next level.' Drops sell out in minutes. The Discord community tracks restocks like sneakerheads track Nike. Except here, the object is handmade by two people in a Brooklyn workshop.