CMU School of Drama


Friday, September 02, 2016

This Is What a $3,000 Box of Colored Pencils Looks Like

gizmodo.com: Fashion mogul and designer Karl Lagerfeld has realized that the adult coloring book fad isn’t going away any time soon. But instead of cashing in with his own line of coloring books, he’s collaborated with Faber-Castell on a set of colored pencils that will set you back $2,850. Come again?

9 comments:

Alex Fasciolo said...

Ok, the concept is cool but this is absolutely not worth nearly three grand. Am I crazy? I don’t draw personally (by choice anyhow), but both my girlfriend and my sister are the type of artists that do either sketch or work with colored pencils. Now, if you wanted to drop a few hundred dollars on pencils, I’d even think that’s a little extreme, but I do understand that often times materials for art aren’t cheap. But this product clearly isn’t marketed towards artists who want to use their craft to make a statement, or a living. It clearly is marketed at people who have the money to buy it as a toy, or as a high priced hobby (still, if you wanted to make drawing a hobby, there are plenty of better ways to do so that don’t cost this kind of money). I’d honestly rather design and build a box that functions similarly myself and give it to someone who would use it than purchase this as a gift for them.

Drew H said...

This article peaked my interest because I just had to buy colored pencils for structures. Boy did I get a great deal. This seems kind of ridiculous. 350 drawing tools seems like very few things for $2,850. That’s 8 dollars for a pencil. The article make a comment about the silhouette on the inside of the lid and how it probably accounts for $2,500 of the price. But without any explanation, this statement is just as confusing as the overpriced pencils. Is this line a joke or is this print really $2,500. I feel as though you can do better with $2,500 then spending it on a print on the inside of a pencil box. Is there something about that piece of art I don’t know? Is it not actually a print? Are there 2,500 unique silhouettes? Honestly, this article raised more questions then it answered. I was expecting this article to be about some high tech colored pencil, or a pencil collection so big you needed three suitcases. I bought 36 colored pencils for $8, meaning instead of buying this box of 350 pencils I could instead get 12,816 colored pencils…I think that would last me through Structures.

Evan Schild said...

This article was very interesting to due to the fact that within a month I had to buy all the supplies for classes this year. The amount i paid was no where close to the price of that box.This article did not make it seem like artist are the ones even using it,instead just pop;e with money who like adult coloring books. Personally I believe people are paying just for the idea of the coloring kit. People who buy this want to feel like they are apart of that special group who has it since only a certain number will be sold. People who buy this should realize how much money they are spending on color pencils, $2,850 is just ridiculous. Also not included in the article is how well the color pencils actually are. If you are spending that much money, you should be assured that these are the best color pencils being produced. Not just cheap pencils in a very nice looking box.

Tahirah Agbamuche said...

My first impression when I saw the picture was, "What a pretty box!" My second reaction was quite similar to Evan's, this is more than my entire list of supplies for Freshmen year! Gets me thinking who the seller had in mind when he created this product. The article dosen't detail the quality or make of the pencils, nor does it have any credibility, so who ever is purchasing the set is doing purely for recreational use. However, I do think it's a brilliant idea to look into the adult coloring book in terms of the tools so heavily used, but I've yet to find someone so invested in the trend that they'd be willing to drop so much cash.The idea, design, and use are great, but the seller may have some trouble getting orders from this market, since adult coloring is only a small hobby.

Amanda Courtney said...

I suppose Karl Lagerfield is well established enough that he can seriously market a box of colored pencils for $2,850. But still this notion is ridiculous and is very indicative of all that is wrong with fashion, and the sphere surrounding it. Premiere designers like Lagerfield are often priced out of the vast majority of possible consumer's budgets, inherently instilling a sense of elitism and classism in the industry. This colored pencil box only serves to reinforce that sentiment. I also have to kind of scoff at the notion that anyone who purchases these will actually use them as anything other than a status symbol. Are these actually top of the line, superior pencils? If they were, then maybe.

I did some research and found that a set of 36 color pencils from the Albrecht Durer line costs $58.05, according to the Blick website. While that price is nothing to sneeze at, this sharply illustrates the designer premium being placed on these pencils.

Alex Talbot said...

While I'm sure the colored pencils are top-notch, I agree with what everyone is saying, and I do not think these are worth the price tag. Here, it is clear that you're definitely paying for the brand, not the quality. A good set of colored pencils can get very expensive, but nowhere near 3 grand. And while most artists would not pay for these, I think the few that would should really look at what they're buying--are the pencils really worth a price that rivals even the most powerful computers? Or is it just the implied value put on them by their manufacturer--because they're more expensive, they are therefore supposedly better pieces of equipment.

Javier Galarza-Garcia said...

Wow! And I thought my art supplies were expensive. After reading this article I was let down to realize that they were just ordinary colored pencils. For the price, I expected the article to talk about how these colored pencils could be used to draw... and cure cancer. $3,000 is a quite a lot of money. I personally don't believe in art supplies that advertise at such high prices. Maybe because I believe that if I buy a ten dollar pack of colored pencils and draw a beautiful portrait, I have made something out of nothing. I feel that if I decided to color with these unreasonably expensive pencils and I didn't create an amazing piece of art, then I failed in using these colored pencils properly... or that I just wasted $3,000 dollars. Of course there are very wealthy people, who are not artists, that love to spend their money on novelty items like this and who enjoy adult coloring like previous comments state. Though it must be nice to be able to have these kinds of colored pencils, I wouldn't go out of my way to get them.

Kelly Simons said...

I clicked on this post because I couldn't believe that colored pencils could cost so much money. The article doesn't really explain why the cost of the pencils are so high. It appears that the sheer quantity of the pencils is what is raising the price, as well as the box they come in. The box is an interesting detail, I like the functionality of it. With so many pencils included in the kit I could see paying three hundred to five hundred dollars for it, but not three thousand, that seems excessive. I would like to know the quality of the pencils to see how well they stack up against more professional pencils like Prismacolor, to see if the cost is worth it. Overall, an interesting article, but not one I could relate to, since I don't have three thousand dollars to spare only on colored pencils.

Unknown said...

This kit seems to be a pretty silly concept to me at least. Each of the pencils you get in this box is costing you $8.57 which is pretty insane. But aside from the price tag the article doesn’t go in too much depth about the pencils so let’s assume that these pencils are literally the greatest pencils in the world that make anyone who touches them into a master artist. Obviously not true but now the price tag isn’t so ridiculous. What is still ridiculous is the fact that the whole set is going to become incomplete as soon as you use one whole pencil which I have a feeling won’t take that long when you’re creating the next Mona Lisa in your sleep. Well now you have 349 pencils and have to go buy an off the box pencil for… wait a minute this is the same pencil, but it only costs $2 a pencil… Noooo! I’ve been foiled again, them tricksy marketers. Damn you!