Luka Allen
BFA in Product Design, 2025
Capstone Project: Pane
Hi, I’m Luka Allen. Coming from a background of knifemaking and handcraft, my industrial design work is heavily influenced by the physical parts of the process. I enjoy designing thoughtful and beautiful hard goods that bring joy to the user in their everyday life, often inspired by Scandinavian design principles. I enjoy variety in design and love to learn new things, but would love to continue on with quality home goods, kitchen tools, or hardware during my next stage in life.
Pane is a magnetized knife block designed to display a home cook’s knife collection accessibly, while creating a visual and physical barrier between the sharp blades and those moving through the kitchen. A weighted base ensures stability, while the use of walnut, patinated aluminum, and leather gives it lasting durability and enables it to age gracefully. The organic door cutouts reflect the visual language of my broader body of work, creating negative space that frames and highlights each knife as an object of beauty and utility.
