Mental Roger Lapel Pin
The Studio Flag, Cast in Pewter, 2017
- Role
- Design & production direction
- Relationship
- The studio's own mark — in service since, and still for sale today
- Target
- Cast the studio flag in metal: a three-dimensional die-cast pewter lapel pin that is the flag, not a badge with a flag printed on it
- Constraints
- 2017 · die-casting, so the relief has to survive the mold — the cloth's ripples, the raised edges, and the skull and blades standing proud of the banner all had to be modeled before the tooling was commissioned · antique-silver finish doing the legibility work in the grooves
- Force fielded
- Nick Charney Kaye — design and production direction
- Time-to-dispatch
- Modeled, cast and shipping in 2017; still in stock and still $4.99, shipped free in the US
- Result
- A pewter die-cast pin of Mental Roger — a skull between two uncrossed blades on a waving flag — available on eBay and worn since
- Principal
- Outright Mental (the studio's own flag)
Mental Roger is the studio’s flag. In 2017 we cast it in metal: a three-dimensional die-cast pewter lapel pin, finished in antique silver, so the flag could fly on something smaller than a galleon.
The pin is the flag itself, not a badge with a flag printed on it. The silhouette is a waving banner on a short staff, the cloth engraved with the ripples of the wind and raised at the edges, and the skull and blades stand proud of the cloth in relief. Two swords sit uncrossed around a human skull: one held low, at the ready; the other swung high, slicing the top of the skull open. They are in balance—power and mindfulness, precision and surrender—and the cut is not violence. It is exposure. Mental Roger is meant to be optimistic: a signal of defiance turned inward, evoking our species’ bold journey into the future.
The cast was modeled with care before it was commissioned as a die-cast, and the pewter holds the detail. The antique-silver finish sits dark in the grooves of the cloth and bright on the edges of the blades, so the relief reads at a glance and the flag looks like it is moving even when it is pinned still.
It is a lapel pin in the plain sense. It goes on a jacket lapel, a hat, a bag strap—anywhere a flag is worth planting.
If someone handed you one of these, you’ve met the studio. Outright Mental makes original games and experiences that are sharp, strange, and deliberately human. The portfolio is what the flag has flown over since, and the manifesto is what it stands for.
Material: pewter, three-dimensional die-cast.
Finish: antique silver — dark in the grooves of the cloth, bright on the edges of the blades.
Relief: skull and blades standing proud of the engraved cloth, so the flag reads as moving while pinned still.
Iconography: two uncrossed swords — one low and ready, one swung high, slicing the skull open. Not violence. Exposure.
Wear: lapel, hat, bag strap — anywhere a flag is worth planting.
Ancestor: the Jack of Souls, 2003.
Get one
US $4.99, shipped free in the US, on eBay.
Wear it in good health!
Proof: the pin on eBay — in stock at US $4.99, shipped free in the US · the manifesto on Mental Roger — what the flag stands for.
