Business self-defense kit: stylish, wallet-sized concealed weapons

Tha Business is a concept design by Hoang and Anh Nguyen that rethinks a number of antipersonnel objects (pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles) as stylish, wallet-sized gizmos. Also includes a whistle.

Tha Business Self Defense Kit (via Beyond the Beyond)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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dragonfrog

That pepper spray can looks like it would be mighty easy to get turned around. If someone was attacking me, I’d give myself barely better than 50/50 odds of spraying my attacker rather than myself.

Turning the nozzle 90 degrees so it points away from the direction the trigger is pulled seems like it would be a big interface improvement (hmm, perhaps there’s a reason guns aren’t commonly designed as near-featureless rectangles that fire out one side)
alephxero

I notice the pens aren’t labeled in the images. The creators must have assumed everyone has seen Joe Pesci’s work in “Casino.”
xzzy

A couple of designers need to hustle themselves back to school.

Neon text on a light background? Were we not intended to be able to read it?
- http://twitter.com/CREATIVEsession CREATIVESESSION
  
  this doesn’t look too tough to read. http://www.creativesession.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/thatbusinessmoney.jpg
  - Jason Wood
    
    That’s sarcasm, right? Seriously, I thought it was a foreign language for a bit… it’s that illegible.
- http://www.facebook.com/starsandpowerlines Xavier Togia
  
  Right? I am not even gonna try looking at this.
tamgoddess

The crappy drop shadow was supposed to fix that. ;)
Bradley BoyEs

Also, the whistle would make much more sense as one of the pens, and the knuckles are waaaaaaay too small for a normal sized adult to use.
- penguinchris
  
  It’s designed by a Vietnamese couple (based on the names) who don’t use Western names, so possibly they live in Vietnam or are recent immigrants, and they’re probably small (much smaller than what I assume your idea of a “normal sized adult” is, anyway).
xenphilos

I love that the pens have no annotations.
http://twitter.com/laurentbelkacem Laurent Belkacem

I like the fact that the most useful self-defense items of this system are the pens.
SCAQTony

Here I go, about to get hate flames again but what kind of people say to themselves, “I know, I will design some really kick-ass, concealable, weapons for those business types with discernible taste! Maybe the ‘brass knuckles-credit card’ will really ‘eff’ somebody up real good! Jeaaaah!”
GlenBlank

Just don’t confuse the whistle with the pepper spray. :-)
http://twitter.com/aluminium85 Alex S

To actually be relevant for the target crowd at everydaycarry blog these are missing “TACTICAL something something” in the name.
RyonRyon

“im in the buisiness of giving you the business. and business is boomin’”
-meatwad
keelan byrne

the pens are proabably for making locks and bars on joints, similar to what is done in bujinkan and jiu-jitsu
Emo Pinata

Guys, the pens are there for a size comparison and not part of the package…
Halloween_Jack

Stop the presses–Yanko Design shows off something pretty and impractical!
Hanglyman

I can tell there are brass knuckles because of the indentations for fingers. The other items I guess I’ll never know, because I can NOT read that text for the life of me. In addition to the awful color choice, it looks like a celebrity’s signature.