Pencils

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.

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.

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.

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.