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Noris, Norix and the Upcycled Wood Evolution

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You can also see Staedtler’s new Noris logo at the top of the packs

If you are interested in Staedtler’s Noris you might have noticed that the wood in the wood-cased pencil has been replaced with upcycled wood (the material previously known as Wopex). From what I can tell this change seems to have happened in Germany in 2024 and in the UK in 2023. Maybe it also happened everywhere the same time and it just took different amounts of time before the old stock was drawn down.

The Norix set I bought last year

When the change was complete Staedtler also introduced a related product, the Norix. In 2025 I came across the Norix for the first time. It’s a pencil that would have looked amazing in the 90s. In my imagination it’s Noris’ cool, skateboard driving cousin. The wood-plastic composite is black instead of wood coloured and the print on the pencil is partly silver coloured. There are also yellow-inlayed strips in the black material. Despite the extrusion process this was probably not too easy to implement. What sets the Norix most apart from the Noris is the asymmetrical shape. I would describe it as a round pencil where one side has been flattened. It is not completely flat though, it is more like the round outside of a circle with a much bigger radius. This makes it very comfortable to hold. You could produce a wood-cased pencil in this shape, but it would create a lot more waste, so using this on an extruded pencil is a great, innovative way of doing something beneficial with an extruded pencil that would be more difficult to do with a traditional wood-cased pencil.

The asymmetric shape

Recently Staedtler also released a Noris evolution set, that includes  the Norix, the modern day Noris and a 1934 edition of the Noris, all made from upcycled wood. You can see the original at Lexikaliker.

The yellow stripes

It took me a while to get my hands on one but I finally found a pack.

I am glad I found it, I just wish the 1934 version of the Noris wood have been made form traditional wood.

Regarding the Norix, I used one for around 10 months now and have to say that I really like the shape. It’s more than just a design exercise. The asymmetric shape makes the pencil comfortable to hold, and the black-and-yellow look gives it enough Noris DNA to feel familiar while still having its own character. I guess whether the Norix is here to stay or not depends on sales numbers. Some of Staedtler’s upcycled-wood pencils did not stay, e.g. The Pencil, but as an example of what can be done with upcycled wood, it is an surprisingly likeable pencil because of it’s comfortable shape.

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The upcycled Noris in Germany

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The old and new Noris together

After being able to observe the shift from the traditional, wood-cased Noris to the new upcycled wood Noris in the UK last year (see The new, upcycled Noris) I was able to experience the same transition in Germany now.

What I saw is, of course, only a small snapshot of the two countries as I observed the transition in a city in North West England last year and now in a city in North West Germany. Other parts of the two countries might have experienced the change at different times.

In March 2024, about a year after the switch in the UK, supermarkets here still had the wood-cased version. Here is an example from Kaufland in Ritterhude.

The wood-cased Noris

By now, only the upcycled Noris is available. I assume the old ones sold out and stock just got replaced with the new version. I am not able to find the wood-cased Noris in any other supermarket in and around Bremen anymore, but some pockets with old stock might still be available, especially in shops with low turnover.

The upcycled Noris

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The Noris and the SATs

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Bleistift reader Robert from Grantham sent me this screenshot from a BBC Radio 5 Live Programme about SATs. Thank you, Robert.

SATs are tests used UK primary schools. With the Noris being the most commonly used pencil in primary schools here, it’s no wonder that the Noris is featured in the photo used for this show.

The Noris is certainly a common occurrence in photos and videos whenever the media report about schools. I wonder if the introduction of the upcycled Noris will change this.

If you want to see more Noris in the wild check out the Noris in the wild page.

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How to distinguish the upcycled from the wood-cased Noris

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In a recent blog post I talked about the new upcycled Noris in the UK. The upcycled version is extruded using a composite wood/plastic material instead of wood. The lead is also extruded and quite different to traditional pencil leads. Glenn, who is a Bleistift blog reader, told me that down South, in London where he lives, the change to the upcycled version of the Noris started last Summer. I guess there’s a higher Noris turnover over there. Around here there are still supermarkets that have not even started stocking the upcycled Noris and only sell the older wood-cased version.

We then also talked about how to recognise if the pencil is upcycled or not. There can be some confusion as I have seen upcycled Noris in the old packaging and Glenn told me that he has seen upcycled Noris pencils that don’t have “Upcycled Wood” written on the barrel.

Here’s a little video that spells out how to recognise which version you are seeing (based on wood grain and lacquer near the cap).

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The new, upcycled Noris

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A few weeks ago Gunther told a few pencil friends, including me, that Staedtler’s Noris is now made from upcycled wood. Upcycled Wood is the material formerly known as Wopex. These pencils are extruded and use a wood-plastic composite instead of wood.

Wood-plastic composites were invented in the 1960s in Italy, but they are not commonly used for pencils. I assume that no other manufacturer spent as much effort as Staedtler to make wood-plastic composites suitable for pencils.

The new upcycled Noris in a British supermarket

Well, today I saw the new upcycled Noris for the first time in the UK. Packaging was not consistent, at least not in the supermarket where I saw them:

Packaging variations included:

  • upcycled pencils in packaging that indicates it contains upcycled pencils and
  • wood-cased pencils in packaging that doesn’t mentioned upcycled wood
  • there were also upcycled pencils in the old packaging that didn’t make it explicit that the pencils inside were made with upcycled wood.

I wonder if the new upcycled Noris pencils will change the way schools here in the UK buy pencils. They provide pencils to primary school pupils for free, to be used in the classroom, and most of them buy Noris pencils. Will they be fine with the changes? ..or will they not like the differences? ..or maybe the schools won’t notice the difference? I really wonder…

My first impressions are that, like previous Wopex pencils, the difference between different grades, e.g. 2B vs 2H, is not quite as pronounced in the upcycled Noris as it is in a traditional wood-cased Noris. In the video I link to here I used Leuchtturm paper where the difference between grades is very small. On other paper, like Tomoe River for example here is a huge difference between the different grades.

If you sharpen an upcycled Noris to a very fine point then that point is not as break resistant as the point of a traditional Noris. It is however more break resistant than the point found on earlier Wopex pencils.

On the plus side the upcycled Noris, when sharpened right, has a very nice, waxy-smooth feel to it when writing – the opposite of scratchy.

From left to right: wood-case Noris, Wopex, upcycled Noris

Find out more about the upcycles Noris in this video:

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A lucky Noris

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Despite being set in the USA, Skydance’s [1]The company behind Top Gun: Maverick, Jack Reacher and Star Trek Beyond (i.e. Star Trek 13) new animation “Luck” features what seems to be a Staedtler Noris.

In case you wonder why a Noris, or should that be ‘a 3D model of a Noris’, made it into this scene: The movie was produced by an animation studio in Madrid which explains the appearance of a very common European pencil in a story set in the USA.

This sighting has been added to the Noris in the Wild page.

I believe that the use of the the screen shot of this pencil, taken from the movie “Luck” falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References

References
↑1 The company behind Top Gun: Maverick, Jack Reacher and Star Trek Beyond (i.e. Star Trek 13)

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