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1. BEST INK PENS FOR WRITING UPDATE
2. BEST INK PENS FOR WRITING PLUS

BEST INK PENS FOR WRITING PLUS

Still - we were left with some pens that had the same average score and the same smoothness rating, so we broke the tie by recruiting left-handed volunteers (we’re all righties) from the New York office to break the tie, as lefties are more susceptible to smudging.įinally, two pens earned perfect scores in testing, so to find our number-one pen, we put the two to a vote among our team, plus one of our volunteer lefties. If two or more pens ended up with the same average score, we broke the tie by looking at each pen’s smoothness rating, as we collectively found this factor to be the most important one. To standardize the writing surface, we asked each tester to use the pens on the same Muji notebook and averaged each pen’s scores across the five categories.

Once we narrowed our list down to the very best, most highly recommended pens, we divided them up among the Strategist’s team of writers and editors (there are 11 of us) to be rated according to our five criteria. Our doodles on the Muji Plantation Paper notebooks. Looks: Is it a beautiful writing instrument? Are there design elements that make the pen stand out? Smudging: Does the ink smudge on the paper or on your hand when writing? To what degree?īleed-through: Does the ink bleed through to the other side of the page?įeel: How does the pen feel in your hand? Is it comfortable to hold? Is it heavy or light? Smoothness: How easily does the pen glide across the page? Does the tip feel scratchy or catch on the paper? How smoothly does the ink flow? Then we branched out and consulted pen bloggers like Ed Jelley, Jessica Chung of Pretty Prints & Paper, and Ana Reinert of The Well-Appointed Desk pen shop proprietors like Brian Goluet of The Goulet Pen Company, Elaine Ku of JetPens, and David Cole of Pen Heaven and even ballpoint-pen artists Rafael Augusto and Nathan Lorenzana, who use the humble tool to create intricate works of art - often on Instagram.Īmong our team we have those who prefer thin-lined pens, others who like thick, marker-y ones, and even one fountain pen fanatic, but while our individual preferences vary, we’ve aimed to standardize our judgments by evaluating each pen on a scale of 1 (poor) through 5 (excellent): We trawled through our own archive, looking for pens favored by highly opinionated people like André Aciman and Curtis Sittenfeld, pens from around the world, writers’ and illustrators’ favorite pens, and even the best-reviewed pens on Amazon.

BEST INK PENS FOR WRITING UPDATE

And if you disagree (or have a favorite we missed), share it in the comments - we just might test it when we update this list in the future.īefore we started testing pens, we did a wide sweep to determine which ones would make the list. The finer the point, the scratchier it’s likely to be. One person’s beautiful pen might be no more than inoffensive to another. Some of us prefer a finer line and some of us a thicker one (even within the Strategist’s ranks, there is dissent).

One note: A lot of what makes one pen better than another is completely subjective. The resulting list is a ranking of the top 100 pens, according to Strategist editors and writers. Then we called in and tested dozens upon dozens of gels, rollerballs, felt-tips, ballpoints, and fountain pens, and put them to the test. We consulted a panel of experts, picked through personal favorites, and mined our own pen coverage to determine the top contenders. Does it glide along the page, or does it drag? Does the ink flow in a smooth line, or is it unpredictable? Does the pen feel good or would note-taking cramp your hand? And how does it look? With so many varieties out there, from plastic ballpoints sold by the dozen to thousand-dollar fountain pens hunted down by collectors, we became determined to find the very best pens for everyday use. A small sampling of all the pens we tested.Īt its most basic, a pen has to do just one thing, but there are so many reasons to choose one over another.