Allex Scissors

The Allex scissors design has stayed essentially unchanged since it was introduced in 1974, and it's become a standard fixture on office desks across Japan. Its ergonomic shape and blade quality won Japan's Good Design Award that same year (then still called the g-mark), and the Long Selling Good Design Award followed in 1990 — recognizing a design that stayed genuinely useful for decades rather than falling out of fashion.

A rubber ring lines the inside of the handles for a comfortable grip during daily use — including here, where a pair lives on the desk at the SORT office. The Black colourway has a Teflon coating that keeps tape, glue, and other sticky residue from clinging to the blades.