Description: A birch pencil pot from IKEA
Price: £15 (~$20; €18) for a set of four boxes
Material: Birch
Further information: A pencil pot made from birch, from IKEA’s Förhöja set. I didn’t see this set on the American IKEA web site, but on the continent it is much cheaper than in the UK (€14.99 vs. £15).
Prices and exchange rates: July 2016
Pencil Pot Of The Month – July 2016 Read More »
I’m familiar with the German verb flanieren (to stroll), but I didn’t know that is seems to be a ‘serious hobby’ and art until I heard about the Flâneuse on Radio 4 on my way to work this morning.
Why is this of interest in a pencil blog? ..because it all starts with the need for a pencil – from Street Haunting: A London Adventure (1930)
…so when the desire comes upon us to go street rambling the pencil does for a pretext, and getting up we say: “Really I must buy a pencil”.
We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room.
Radio 4 talked about it at 8:21am when presenting the idea from a book by Lauren Elkin.
It’s very good if you find a pencil on your stroll through the streets because part of this hobby seems to be that you then write down what you have observed.
Good that there’s a happy end. At the end of the clip they luckily do find a pencil shop.
You can listen to it on the Radio 4 web site. You have to jump about 2h 21m into the programme to hear the part about the Flâneuse (and the pencil).
The Flâneuse and the pencil Read More »
…just a quick follow up to yesterday’s blog post about Staedtler’s 3D-printed pen.
Staedtler’s app needed to design the 3D printed pen is (currenlty) only available for the iPad. When I got my hand on an iPad another problem came up. You can only get Staedtler’s app from the German Apple App Store. I did manage to get access to the German App Store, but it wasn’t not easy, so I thought I make a quick video of how the process of choosing/designing your pen looks like – for those unable to try it out themselves.
Here’s a look at ‘designing’ a Fusion-Line pen.
In the YouTube comments Julie Paradise pointed out that the difference between the M and the A (beginner) nibs is that A nibs
…have the tipping of the nib shaped differently, more “forgiving” to rotating the pen while writing instead of having a smaller “sweet spot”.
Here’s a look at ‘designing’ an Icon-Line pen.
I guess we’ll see many more 3D printed pens in the future. As a start in this new era Staedtler’s Fusion and Icon-Line seem rather good.
Designing a 3D printed pen Read More »
I just noticed that Staedtler let’s you design your own pen in 3D. They will then 3D-print it and send it to you.
What a great idea.
As far as I can tell this service is currently only available in Germany and you need an iPad to design the pen.
PS: For Staedtler’s web sites you can’t leave out the “www.”, so staedtler.de will (currently) not work. You can find the page for this pen at https://www.staedtler.de/de/produkte/staedtler-3dsigner/.
I believe that the use of the image shown, taken from Staedtler’s web site, in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Staedtler’s 3D printed Pen Read More »
A few days ago I have received a Magno from HribarCain. First I wasn’t sure what to think of it and its unique feature, but now that I have tried it for a while I have to say that I really like this pencil and love the mechanism used to propel the lead.
The Magno is a lead holder with a magnetic mechanism, invented by HribarCain – a team of two British design engineers who started working on this pencil one and a half years ago.
The special thing about this pencil is the magnetic mechanism used to propel the lead. Instead of clicking a button (..and the lead ‘falls out’) you first loosen the front of the pen. You then move a ring on the outside of the body which will move a magnet inside the pencil. This magnet is attached to the lead. This gives precise control over how much more lead you want to expose.
I know that some people who bought the Penxo, a very different Kickstarter pen in a similar price range, had problems with the lead breaking easily. I did some initial drop tests and the Magno seems to cope well with being dropped: the lead didn’t break.
My understanding is that everything is in place to produce the Magno and it will get made anyway, but instead of just selling these pencils in an online shop HribarCain is launching a Kickstarter campaign on 22 July where early backers can get this pen for £20. The money raised will then be used for other design products they plan to make.
The pen will be available in four colours that have an iPhone vibe to them, but unlike the Lamy LX the Magno’s colours aren’t a copy of the iPhone colour, which I think is a good thing.
When I saw the photos I thought the Magno is a bit on the bling looking side, but in reality the pen was more ‘serious’ looking than I expected. The ring is still a bit shiny for my taste, but overall the Magno is serious looking enough to use at work.
I hope this pencil will sell well so that there will be even more versions in the future. A Rotring-style matt black version, maybe even hexagonal, with a slimmer ring would be such an amazing pen, at least for my taste, others will disagree.
The Magno is very well made and when keeping in mind that there are many lead holders and clutch pencils with a plastic body that cost nearly as much, £20 is great value for money.
You can find the Kickstarter at this address.
I’d like to thank Ashley from HribarCain who has sent me the Magno free of charge for review purposes.
The Magno – a magnetic lead holder Read More »