Divide and Rule was born out of over 20 years’ experience in the furniture and product design industries. Our founder Henry spent this time working on both bespoke and production designed furniture, lighting and homewares, often using CAD design systems, but always sketching and designing on paper. From this was born a lifelong appreciation of the skill of mark making, the texture and feel of different paper, and the need to disconnect from technology.
Unfortunately, Henry found that despite the world of stationery providing an exceptionally broad selection of pens and pencils for tailoring your mark on the page, there wasn't the same choice of tools for how to measure and draw accurately, especially if like him you suffer with dyslexia.
The result of this was a focus on creating better tools for the artist, illustrator, craftsperson and designer like himself.
From initially developing the first 45°square that dimension from every corner, in both directions and were an exact number of millimetres to every side, and then a 2nd version of the square with 60/30° angles. He developed the incremental millimetre and degree markings that were much easier to read. Over time more products were developed, each solving a challenge or need, and with the help of feedback from fellow designer’s a collection was created and Divide and Rule was born in the spring of 2024.
