Lyra Hits Two Out of the Park

Woodchuck here, reporting from the Frankfurt Paperworld show in Germany.

Paperworld Frankfurt is Europe’s premier tradeshow for Writing Instruments, Stationary, School, Home, Office & Art Supply Products and is held at the end of January each year. My pick for this year’s big hits when it comes to innovative new pencil products are two new items both by Lyra based in Nürnburg.

The first item is the Lyra Groove which has also been honored by Paperworld as the Product of the Year for School and Personal Use. The groove consists of a series of Jumbo size triangular color pencils with a row of round grooves cut out of the three sides of each pencil. Lyra’s marketing pitch for this item states the Groove “effortlessly shows children how to position their fingers when learning to draw or write. The grooves are offset ergonomically so that all the fingers involved come to rest just where they ought to be. Shown here are pencils from their 5-color set.

Next and even more interesting and innovative from my personal view is the new Lyra Colorstripe. These sleek mini jumbo size triangular color pencils have a larger rectangular lead that is exposed along the full length of one of the three corners of the pencil. Attractively set in dark black-stained wood the colors really chine out. Available in these pencils allow a fine point to be drawn or the use of a broader side face of the leads for shading greater areas. A thin clear lacquer coat safeguards the color lead exposed along the corner edge until the pencil is sharpened back. The 8 color box set shown here includes a sharpener designed for the Colorstripe pencils.

As I reported here in my Timberlines blog last August Lyra was purchased by Fila Group where I discussed the opportunities and challenges presented by this German-Italian marriage. We’ll my kudos are out to both companies for these innovative new items which I am sure will both be home run products for them over the next year.

See my full report on pencil industry trends and news from Frankfurt Paperworld 2009 at my Timberlines Blog here.