I’m not an artist or an architect, but I do love me some good quality pens, pencils, and markers. Since I’m just a casual user, though, I don’t mind tossing them into an ordinary pencil case or even just slipping them into my bag’s side pocket when I’m heading out and might use them somewhere. I know people who rely on these tools for their livelihood tend to be a lot more careful about how they carry them around, but the truth is, there just aren’t many quality cases built specifically for that job.
In a surprising collaboration, luxury luggage brand Rimowa and German pencil maker Faber-Castell have teamed up to create a suitcase specifically meant for carrying around your precious pens and pencils. It’s made from the same signature anodized, grooved aluminum shell that Rimowa uses on its actual luggage, with a colorful surprise waiting once you pop it open.
This limited-edition collector’s piece isn’t just a classy-looking suitcase, either. It’s a full kit that includes 120 Polychromos color pencils, custom-made grooved 2B Grip graphite pencils, and a Rimowa-branded platinum-plated sharpener and eraser. Everything is arranged in a two-level tray system that unfolds smoothly, so each piece stays visible and within reach. It’s a stationery lover’s stylish, fever dream and something worth adding to any artist or designer’s wish list.
The case itself looks like a smaller sibling to Rimowa’s regular luggage line, using the same material and design language throughout. It also has the brand’s signature high-gloss aluminum corners and TSA-approved locks, which proves it’s actually travel-ready in case you’re flying somewhere with your supplies in tow. The leather carry handle comes in Faber-Castell’s signature green, a nice branding touch that ties the two icons together.
I said this was a surprising collaboration, but if you really think about it, the partnership makes perfect sense. Rimowa is famous for its sturdy aluminum suitcases, while Faber-Castell has a long history of crafting high-quality pens and pencils dating back to 1761. Both brands are essentially obsessed with precision and “honest materials,” so their craftsmanship philosophies line up more naturally than you’d expect.
So how does this stack up against what’s already out there? The closest comparison in the luxury space is probably Louis Vuitton, which sells its own Art & Craft Elizabeth Pencil Pouch for around $515. That’s already a steep price for something that’s essentially just a fancy fabric zip pouch, and it doesn’t come with any pencils, sharpeners, or organizational trays included. Rimowa and Faber-Castell’s Artist Case, by comparison, costs roughly $3,100, but you’re getting an entirely different category of product: a hard-shell, TSA-approved, aluminum case with a built-in two-tier tray system and a complete 120-pencil professional drawing kit already inside.
On the more affordable end, Faber-Castell’s own wooden Polychromos case with all 120 pencils runs about $700 on its own, no case included. So while the Rimowa collaboration is definitely priced for collectors and diehard fans rather than casual doodlers like me, it’s less “overpriced pencil box” and more “a piece of design furniture that happens to hold your pencils.” It occupies its own lane entirely, somewhere between fine luggage and fine art supplies.
If you’re hoping to snag one, the RIMOWA x Faber-Castell Artist Case officially releases on September 17, 2026, and will be available at Rimowa stores worldwide, on Rimowa.com, and at select Faber-Castell retail stores across Germany, Austria, France, and Italy. Given that it’s a limited-edition run, don’t expect it to stick around for long once it hits shelves.
At the end of the day, most of us don’t need a $3,100 aluminum suitcase just to keep our colored pencils from rolling around in a backpack. But that’s kind of the point. This isn’t really about function alone; it’s about two heritage brands proving that even the most humble everyday tools, the pencils we doodled with as kids, deserve the same obsessive craftsmanship as a suitcase built to survive a transatlantic flight. Whether you’re a professional illustrator, a serious hobbyist, or just someone who appreciates when two iconic names come together in a way that actually makes sense, the Artist Case is a reminder that good design doesn’t discriminate by price point or purpose. Sometimes it just shows up in the most unexpected shape: a pencil box dressed up like a suitcase.
There is an argument happening on desks everywhere, and it is not about productivity systems or the right notebook grid. It is about whether the thing you write with deserves the same design attention as everything else you choose to own. For most people, a pen is a pen. For a small and growing number, it is the one object that connects thought to surface, and that connection is worth getting right. The instruments on this list take that idea seriously.
What unites them is not price or prestige. It is that each one treats the act of writing as a design problem worth solving from the beginning — the weight, the mechanism, the material, the way it sits in the hand before the nib or tip ever touches paper. Some are concepts. Some are products you can order today. All of them make the case that the writing instrument is still one of the most interesting objects in design.
1. Yamaha Swing Scribe
Yamaha’s answer to the question nobody thought to ask — what if a pen had a heartbeat? Part of the brand’s Scribe Tool Design 2024 project, the Swing Scribe draws its logic from the quill: as a feather naturally wobbles under air resistance while writing, it gives the act a physical rhythm. Yamaha made that incidental quality intentional. A weighted tip attached to a metal bar swings as the pen moves, feeding a small, steady pulse back into the hand with every stroke. No batteries. No app. Just physics.
The weight slides along the bar, letting you dial in the arc of the swing to match how you’re writing at any given moment. Pull it close to the pivot for a tighter, faster beat. Let it run wide for slow, deliberate work. This is the kind of design thinking that earns the word Kando — the Japanese concept of emotional resonance that sits at the core of everything Yamaha builds, from concert grands to this pen. It doesn’t make writing faster. It makes it more felt.
What we like:
The pendulum mechanism works without any power source, making it completely self-contained
Adjustable weight position means it adapts to the writer rather than demanding the writer adapt to it
What we dislike:
The swinging arm adds visual complexity that won’t suit every context or desk aesthetic
The concept hasn’t been tested across extended, high-volume writing sessions yet
2. Inseparable Notebook Pen
The premise is embedded in the name. Most pens and notebooks exist in a state of constant near-separation — the pen migrates to a bag, a pocket, another room, and the notebook sits waiting and useless. The Inseparable concept addresses this directly, building pen and notebook as a single resolved object rather than two products that happen to be sold together. The pen lives within the notebook’s architecture rather than being clipped to it as an afterthought, and removing it feels deliberate rather than accidental.
What makes this design interesting isn’t just the integration — it’s that the integration is the premise, and everything else follows from it. The proportions of the pen are dictated by the notebook. The notebook’s form is shaped around the pen’s presence. Neither object is compromised to serve the other, which is harder to achieve than it sounds. When a design solves a problem this specific and this common, it has a right to exist.
Eliminates one of the most common and most irritating failures of the writing ritual entirely
The formal resolution between pen and notebook is tight — neither object feels like a concession
What we dislike:
Integration at this level commits you to one notebook format, limiting flexibility for writers who move between sizes
Writers who prefer their own paper choices will find the pairing restrictive
3. Da Vinci Pencil
Gabrilevich Design’s Da Vinci pencil concept earns its name not through ornamentation but through the kind of cross-disciplinary thinking that made Leonardo’s notebooks worth studying in the first place. The design draws from da Vinci’s own mechanical sketches — the geometry, the visible logic of moving parts, the sense that an object should reveal how it works rather than hide it. The result is a pencil that functions as a small piece of mechanical sculpture, beautiful precisely because nothing about its construction is concealed.
The concept challenges the pencil’s conventional muteness. Most pencils look like nothing in particular. The Da Vinci concept looks like something that was thought about — that has a position, a point of view about what a mark-making tool should communicate about the hand that uses it. Whether it writes better than a standard pencil is beside the point. It writes differently, and it makes you think about the act differently, which is often the more interesting design outcome.
What we like:
Treats a pencil as a vehicle for design philosophy rather than a commodity object
The exposed mechanical logic gives it a conceptual depth that most stationery completely lacks
What we dislike:
Concept-driven designs at this level of visual complexity often struggle in extended daily use
Visible mechanisms can introduce maintenance friction that disrupts the writing ritual
4. Levitating Pen 2.0 Cosmic Meteorite Edition
The levitating pen is a category that could easily slide into novelty, and the original versions of magnetic levitation pens leaned into that direction unapologetically. The 2.0 Cosmic Meteorite Edition changes the conversation by adding material seriousness to the spectacle. The pen itself incorporates genuine meteorite fragment material — iron-nickel alloy from outside the atmosphere — which gives the levitation a context it previously lacked. The object that hovers above its base is, in a measurable sense, from space.
That combination of astronomical material and magnetic suspension creates an object that earns its place on a desk in a way that pure spectacle cannot. It is a writing instrument that happens to be made partly from the oldest solid material you will ever hold, suspended above a surface by the same electromagnetic principles that govern planetary orbits. The writing experience is secondary to what the pen communicates as a resting object, and for a desk piece that doubles as a conversation anchor, that hierarchy is entirely appropriate.
The meteorite material elevates the concept from a gadget to a genuine collectible
The levitation serves the narrative of the material rather than competing with it
What we dislike:
The magnetic base required for levitation eliminates any possibility of portability
Its function as a writing instrument is always secondary to its function as a display object
5. Qui Magnetic Pencil System
Qui operates on the premise that the friction between a pencil and the surface it lives on — a desk, a notebook, a wall — should be designed rather than incidental. The magnetic system allows the pencil to attach and detach from its designated surface with a satisfying, calibrated resistance, making the act of picking it up and setting it down feel considered rather than casual. This is a small interaction, but it happens dozens of times a day, and designing it well changes the quality of the entire writing practice.
The system thinking extends beyond the magnetic connection. The pencil’s geometry is resolved with the mounting surface as part of the design problem, not as a separate accessory. The result is that Qui occupies space well even when not in use, which is most of the time. A pencil that looks intentional when it is sitting still is a harder design challenge than one that merely writes well, and Qui understands that the resting state is part of the design.
What we like:
The system approach treats the pencil and its environment as a single design problem
The resting interaction — picking up and setting down — is as considered as the writing experience itself
What we dislike:
The magnetic system creates a dependency: without its base, the pencil loses its defining characteristic
Committing to a fixed mounting point works against the natural portability of a pencil
6. PENTAPA
Konstantin Diehl’s PENTAPA takes its name and its logic from the pentagon — five sides, each one a resolved surface rather than a generic round barrel. The five-sided form is unusual enough to read as a design decision the moment you pick it up, and practical enough to hold well once you begin writing. Pentagons don’t roll off desks. They register against the fingers in a way that circular barrels don’t, giving you tactile information about the nib’s orientation before the tip reaches paper.
PENTAPA belongs to a tradition of geometric pen design that runs from the hexagonal tradition of rOtring and Kaweco through to contemporary CNC-machined objects, but it finds its own position in that tradition rather than merely referencing it. Five sides is not the expected answer. It is the interesting one — the number that offers enough symmetry to feel resolved and enough irregularity to feel considered. That balance between the expected and the surprising is where most good pen design lives.
What we like:
The pentagonal form solves the rolling problem with more formal interest than a standard hexagon
The five-sided barrel gives the pen a distinct tactile identity that rewards extended daily use
What we dislike:
The unconventional geometry won’t suit every grip style or hand size
Finding a compatible pen case or sleeve requires more effort than standard round or hexagonal barrels
7. Everlasting All-Metal Pencil
The all-metal pencil solves a problem that the pencil has had since its invention: it runs out. A graphite core depletes. A pencil shortens. Eventually, it disappears entirely and takes with it whatever patina or character it had developed through use. The everlasting all-metal pencil replaces graphite with a metal alloy tip — typically an aluminum or similar soft-metal formulation — that deposits a mark through controlled abrasion rather than core consumption. The pencil does not shorten. It does not run out.
The mark is different from graphite — lighter, slightly metallic in tone, with a distinctive quality that serious writers and sketchers tend to either embrace or reject immediately. The design interest is in what remains when the core is removed: a pure metal object whose entire form is determined by how it feels to hold, since there is no pencil-to-grip ratio to manage, no sharpener to carry, no length to account for. The result is one of the most resolved objects in everyday carry design.
Removes the pencil’s built-in obsolescence entirely, changing the object from consumable to permanent
With no core to deplete, the entire form is determined purely by how it feels to hold
What we dislike:
The mark quality is distinct enough from graphite to require genuine adjustment and won’t suit every application
Some writing and sketching tasks — particularly those requiring dense, dark marks — simply don’t translate well to a metal alloy deposit
8. The Bolen
The James Brand has built its reputation on EDC objects with no unnecessary elements — knives, tools, and pens that look like they were designed by someone who uses them. The Bolen is the brand’s pen, and it carries the same design logic as everything else in their catalogue: machined from quality materials, resolved in form, designed to be carried without thought and used with satisfaction. The clip works. The mechanism engages cleanly. The proportions sit right in the hand without adjustment.
What distinguishes the Bolen from most EDC pens is that the James Brand comes from a tool-making tradition rather than a stationery one, which means the pen is designed for carry first and desk presence second. That priority ordering produces a different object than you get from pen-first design — one that is slightly more aggressive in material and slightly more considered in how it lives in a pocket. It is the writing instrument for someone who doesn’t think of themselves as a pen person, and that is exactly who needs it most.
What we like:
The tool-making heritage produces genuine material integrity, with nothing present without a reason for being there
Carry-first design logic makes it the most naturally portable instrument on this list
What we dislike:
The EDC-first approach means it lacks the expressive personality of instruments designed for desk use
Writers who want the pen to feel special on the page rather than merely functional in the pocket may find it underwhelming
The Object in Your Hand Shapes the Thought on the Page
Eight instruments that represent eight different positions on what a writing tool should be. The Yamaha asks what happens when you give a pen a pulse. The Levitating Pen asks what happens when the material itself carries a story. The Bolen asks what happens when you design for the pocket before the page. None of these answers is the same, which is the point. The best design in any category is the kind that expands your sense of what the category can contain.
What they share is the conviction that the instrument matters — that the weight, the mechanism, the material, and the form of the thing in your hand have a real effect on what ends up on the page. That conviction used to belong only to serious writers and professional draughtsmen. The fact that you can now find it in a magnetic pencil system, a levitating desk object, and a pen designed by a motorcycle company suggests the rest of the world is catching up.
We’ve all been through those panicked moments when we try to scramble for a pen or even a pencil and neither is in sight, let alone within reach. Thanks to a renaissance of paper notebooks and analog productivity systems, it’s no longer weird to be carrying a writing instrument with you all the time, sometimes even in your pocket. Not all pens and pencils, however, are made to be shoved in pockets, especially when it comes to pencils that have fragile leads that easily break at the slightest pressure. But what if you had a writing tool that never ran out of ink, never needed to be sharpened, and never snapped in two when you accidentally sat on it? That’s the kind of handwriting bliss that the Pocket Everlasting Metal Pencil brings to your pocket, bag, or EDC toolkit, ensuring you’ll have something to write down your thoughts with at the moment that inspiration strikes.
Although an ink pen is the preferred tool for jotting down notes, some prefer the centuries-old pencil for its more forgiving and expressive properties. That’s mostly thanks to the nature of the graphite core that leaves its unique mark on paper or other mediums. But whether the pencil is traditional or mechanical, it has the almost innate drawback of needing to be sharpened or replaced because the “lead” has become dull or has broken off. When that happens, not only does your flow of thought get broken as well, you also start to get stressed while scrambling for a sharpener or replacement leads.
This all-metal pocket pencil removes that weakness by using an ingenious special alloy core that barely needs sharpening or not at all. That alloy, however, still contains graphite so it leaves the same marks that a regular clay or charcoal-based pencil would. In other words, you get the same writing experience and quality as a 2H pencil, but without the hassles of “running out” of lead or even ink.
What makes this everlasting pencil even more special is its size. At only 4.7 inches (120mm) long, it is the perfect length to keep in your pocket so you always have it at hand when you need it. At the same time, it isn’t too short to make writing for long periods of time uncomfortable. It strikes the perfect balance between portability and ergonomics, something that a regular pencil can’t even achieve.
The design of the pencil is quite distinctive as well, sporting a faceted metal barrel with a matte texture that improves your grip and prevents the pencil from rolling off desks. It also comes with a rather cute leather cap so you don’t accidentally leave marks inside your pockets. Whether you’re scribbling notes or drafting your next designs, you can enjoy a stress-free and expressive writing experience by having this everlasting all-metal pencil always in your pocket.
