A New Way To HANDL Your Selfies! Meet the HANDL-O!
Invented by fine artist Allen Hirsch (creator of the original HANDL) The O Series as you might suspect comes in the shape of a circle. The circle Allen says, is the symbol of flow, rotation, symmetry and perfection. You now have the ability to hold your phone with just one finger! And the O converts easily to a full landscape and portrait stand.
It’s the perfect extension of your hand to your phone because of its patented elastic and brace system that allows you to hang your cell phone anywhere to take the shot. You can hang your cell phone on a broomstick, golf club, tree branch, supermarket cart, car mirror, laptop, umbrella, wine bottle wherever.
HANDL’s secure and sleek phone grip allows you to take better selfies, stabilize video and more all with a comfortable hold.
HANDL-O’s come in so many cool versions. I love the ‘Wild’ collection myself – sparkles in black, gold, silver, pearl and more and then there’s red snake and white ostrich, gold gator and cheetah to name a few. His ‘fun’ collection of graphics are endless, ranging from lips, to Van Gogh, to Sun, Sea Rose and more.
HANDL New York Phone Grips, Stands and Cases were ‘a natural extension’ for New York City artist Allen Hirsch, who’s had a fascination with the power of screens since his late teens and has documented our interconnectedness with screens in his art.
I love how the idea for HANDL came to him.
Seems one day he was painting a picture while texting using a new large screen phone with the other hand. (What fine artist texts and paints at the same time you wonder? Well what person on this planet doesn’t text while doing something else at the same time?) Allen was immediately struck by the similarities of both actions.
He said, “In one hand, I was projecting my thoughts and feelings effortlessly on canvas with the brush and with the other, I was also projecting my thoughts and feelings into this little metal box- although with none of the flow and efficiency of the paint brush. I immediately felt this was a problem for me to solve.”
Allen Hirsch then spent the next 8 months (obsessed with the idea) attaching all sorts of homemade constructions on his phone until one day, with a bunch of popsicle sticks held together with thumbtacks, tape and a rubber band, he had an epiphany and HANDL-O was born.
“With HANDL, we replace that stressful grip on our devices with a feeling that our phones are an organic extension of our hands and fingers.”
P.S. Allen Hirsch painted the picture here on string. It looks like the paint is on the canvas. It’s not. Allen has a collection of string paintings. He also has thousands of other fine art paintings that will amaze you. You should definitely check out his work at AllenHirsch.com. For goodness sakes the man even painted a President!
Oh and about that monkey he lived with for years. There was a 2018 Emmy-winning documentary on his life and art with Benjamin the monkey by Jimm Lasser and Biff Butler. It premiered in the New York and Amsterdam film festivals in 2016 and is available as a New York Times Op-Docs series. The trailer is on Allens website here.
Allen’s a serious painter and serious inventor with serious talent but we had some good giggles too in this podcast of his feature Interview on The Debbie Nigro Show. Enjoy.
Photo credit of Allen painting goes to Sinclaire Yoon Photography.
Photo Credit Shirtless Guy (Daniel Marracino/creative director Jodi Kaplan)
