Skip to main content

Function Meets Style in the Ico Bottle Opener

There are bottle openers, and then there are bottle openers. They come in many forms, from the gadget that’s attached to your Swiss Army Knife to Dango Products’s hook/bottle opener. There’s the kind that professional bartenders keep in their back pockets that are shaped a rectangle, and the ones that come with your conventional corkscrew. Then there are the bottle openers that you keep on your keychain or the ones that come on magnets for your fridge. Bottle openers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But you haven’t seen a bottle opener until you’ve caught a glimpse of the Ico Bottle Opener.

The folks over at Fort Standard, a Brooklyn-based, contemporary American design studio founded by friends and collaborators Gregory Buntain and Ian Collings, created the Ico Bottle Opener while crossing the boundaries of functional metal frameworks.

Recommended Videos

“If we have an idea, we have to explain to the other person why we think it’s a valid idea,” said Buntain in OTHR. That’s often an advantage because it sparks different ideas in the other person’s head, and we each bring in our own insights and inspirations.”

The bottle opener can be used as a sculptural table top decoration while not in use. The 3-D hexagonal shape is so complicated that it comes not from a cast, but from a 3D printed bronze. Every side of the object is capable of opening the bottle. That means all 20 of the facets on the icosahedron can pop open a bottle of soda, beer, or whatever else you need a bottle opener for. That means that it’s not just one bottle opener, but actually 20 in one.

So if you want a bottle opener that beats out all others and that can be a cool decoration piece for your home, the Ico Bottle Opener is it.

The Ico Bottle Opener, by Fort Standard, $70 at othr.com.

Ann Binlot
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ann Binlot is a New York-based freelance writer who contributes to publications like The Economist, Wallpaper*, Monocle…
Don’t ruin your cigars: here’s how to properly season a new humidor
Seasoning secrets every cigar lover could use
faceless man presenting a cigar humidor with cigars inside with gloved hands

If you're a newcomer to the world of cigars or just bought a brand-new humidor, you'll need to season it. And no, I'm not saying to add salt and pepper to it. If you've never heard of it, you might ask, "What is seasoning for a humidor?"

Don't think you need to flavor the box or anything — seasoning is really about getting the wood inside your humidor so as not to rob your cigars of precious moisture. Easy to understand, and getting it done is relatively straightforward as well. The trick is figuring out the "why," and we'll get into that in a bit. But let's first discuss seasoning a humidor.

Read more
The NBA’s ultimate celebration tool: The victory cigar
A look at the players and coaches who smoke to celebrate
Jordan smoking a cigar image on a bag

Sports are synonymous with celebration. After winning the biggest trophy of their lives, athletes want to indulge in the payoff that comes with seeing their dreams realized. Teams go into the locker room, where a waterfall of champagne hits them in the eyes, and swimming goggles seem to be a requirement, lest you walk around on the best night of your life half blind. While drinking is often the activity of choice after winning a championship, the NBA has an alternative symbol of greatness that other sports don't use nearly enough: the victory cigar.

Basketball is a team game, but it's also an individual canvas for solo superstardom. After winning an NBA championship, the coaches and players who sit atop the throne have long smoked a cigar in the locker room, during the parade, or even on the bench before the clock has hit zero. There's nothing quite like a good stogie to signify the ultimate win over the rest of the league, but how did the victory cigar get so ingrained in NBA championship celebrations? We want to take a walk down memory lane and look at some of the historical moments and people who made the cigar what it is within the NBA today.
Red Auerbach's victory cigar on the bench

Read more
The best medical shows of all time to binge now
From ER to The Pitt, these are the best medical shows ever made
Noah Wyle in the Pitt

Throughout TV's long history, the medical drama has occupied a somewhat unique place in the landscape. Medical shows are often some of the most reliable on TV precisely because there's so much drama built in to working in a hospital.

Personally, I've found the medical drama to be deeply comforting for years, even if I have no desire to be a doctor myself. Understanding the stress of people in the healthcare profession is fascinating in and of itself.

Read more