U Brands Hex Mechanical Pencil
Hex Mechanical Pencil is an oversized hexagon shaped mechanical pencil. Its smooth transition from hexagon shape to round shape creates subtle yet crisp form that makes the design special. A small detail of adding a thin debossed line on a simple clip ties the U Brands' writing line altogether without being too literal.
Process
First draft - Barrel wrapping problem
One of the requirements to the design was the ability to wrap the barrel with patterns. The factory was unable to wrap the part where hexagon shape transitions to a round shape. It was only possible through water transfer printing but it was too expensive. (Cost of water transfer is much higher than thermal transfer due to its complexity and higher defective percentage.)
Plunger Exploration
Another requirement was to include a bigger erase than standard eraser because small eraser was a big complaint from the consumers. Pencil size eventually increased and explored plunger shapes to go along with it.
Second draft - Hex ring
Because of the barrel wrapping problem, we moved the ring up as a part of the hexagon body and made it hexagon shape as well. Now we were able to wrap the hexagon body by separating the hex and round form. But the factory was having trouble aligning the tip and the barrel, creating 15° misalignment in many prototypes.
Third draft - Rubber grip
After many iterations and obstacles, we came up with a new concept that included a rubber grip so consumers can easily rotate and match the shape when it's not aligned perfectly. We finalized the concept with three options of ring placement and decided to go with the one with a round ring because it relates to U Brands writing line and makes it more distinctive among other mechanical pencils.
