Hasta La Ideas

With a design that relies on the simple powers of Origami and Kirigami, the One Piece Leather explores how to build products without additive or subtractive design. Armed with just one piece of stamp-cut leather (that’s probably the only subtractive process used in the entire product), designers Hou Shuo and Zhang Xiao have created a compact, minimalist leather card holder with 2 sleeves to separate multiple cards, and even a flap to close the cardholder and prevent objects from falling out.

The cardholder is perhaps the businessperson’s most important accessory. It does two main jobs, hold your own cards that you distribute to others, and hold the cards you receive from other people in the industry. Up until social media allowed people to connect to each other, the card-holder was the most powerful tool to expand your professional network. In a lot of ways, it still is an incredibly powerful piece of EDC, and the One Piece Leather is a rather nifty little product. Made from just one simple stamped piece of leather (ideally you could make it out of denim, Tyvek, canvas, or any other fabric), the One Piece Leather lets you simply fold your card-holder together. It ships flat-packed, making it rather logistically efficient, and engages you as the user, by letting you build your product (where have I heard this strategy before? Oh wait, IKEA!)

The holder’s clever design wraps around itself in a way that lets you segregate your cards by having a separate compartment for the cards you distribute versus the cards you receive… and its compact shape and size means your cardholder easily slips right into your pocket so you can carry it around wherever you go. Besides, the lack of rivets, stitches, and glue makes it pretty cost-effective (in terms of materials used/required and labor costs), and allows it to be more durable and easy to recycle too.

The One Piece Leather is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2021.

Designers: Hou Shuo & Zhang Xiao