Ultimately, as we all now understand the story, the breakdown of the specialized ferrule production equipment and the costs to repair or replace the machine factored in the decision by Newell Rubbermaid (Sanford) to discontinue the Blackwing. The economic return did not seem to cover the cost of restarting production given the limited sales for […]
This feature set was considered the fourth most important across our six features ranked by our test groups. Here there is a clear allegiance among traditional Blackwing fans to the historic charcoal or graphite gray gloss finish and imprinting information on the pencil to more closely match that of the original product. Many participants readily […]
Overall, in our Palomino Blackwing bench test graphite smoothness and graphite wear came out as the first and third most important features of the six specific product features our survey groups were asked to prioritize. The second most important item was considered to be the overall performance of the pencil as a whole. We did […]
Welcome back. I hope that you’re enjoying this series of posts as we explore our company’s journey to revive the Blackwing. (To catch up if you’re new see Post One and Post Two) As promised today is the day I’ll begin focusing on our growing understanding of the traditional “Blackwing” fan and their concerns and […]
In Part One of this Series, I introduced our current process of gathering initial consumer response to our new Palomino Blackwing pencil. While we’re completing our evaluation of responses today I answer the question “Why is CalCedar reviving the Blackwing?”. Pure and simple. Blackwing is a great and iconic name among serious pencil fans. Revered […]
Part One: Seeking Consumer Feedback Over the past two weeks we on the CalCedar & Pencils.com team have been in the midst of a grand experiment. That is soliciting and evaluating the initial consumer responses to our new Palomino Blackwing pencil. This process has generated broad interest and feedback from those who participated as well […]
As a follow on to my last post on sketching in the workplace I was catching up on one of my interests this morning which was the Formula 1 Racing Series. Amazing, I came across this article on Red Bull Racing’s F1 car designer Adrian Newey. It turns out in this world of multimullion dollar […]
The team at Ninthlink is one of the two external partners we are currently working with here at Pencils.com to develop and build our next generation Pencils.com site. Today we receive a link to this interesting post promoting the concept of sketching as a workplace creativity tool at the Ninthlink blog. We plan to launch […]
Pencils.com is pleased to announce the addition of a new line of artist products by General Pencil Company. General’s® special formulation pencils complement our premium Palomino graphite and color pencils expanding the range of shade intensity for your pencil drawing and sketching needs. General’s® Brand Pencils have been produced in the USA since 1889. The […]
“Take out your number 2 pencil.” What student hasn’t gotten at least a little anxious upon hearing those words that signify the beginning of an important test? Help boost your students’ confidence and change anxiety into excitement by giving them special “testing pencils.” We carry the very popular “Do Your Best On The Test” pencils […]
