The new “Gekkards Rule” pencils arrived a few days ago printed by the Graphite Pen & Pencil Co. Pencils are a great promotional tool for the Gekkards. They tie nicely to our business, especially when you consider that every single painting I create, starts with some sort of pencil sketch. They are perfect to hand out to kids (and adults) at art shows, school visits and author signings. Each pencil also includes our website, in hopes the consumer will pay us a future visit.

I have used writeonpencils.com for years and their pencils are great with consistent quality, admittedly though, gold, block letters on colored, hexagon barrels, is not all that exciting. After some internet research, I chose GPP company to create our first custom pencil. In particular, I liked the fact that you can customize the entire pencil from the barrel color down to the eraser.

Our text logo, that included the slogan and web address, was created in Adobe Illustrator. They did not specify the logo size on their site, so I did call to get that info. It is always a good idea to print out a proof before sending any logo. I printed the logo then trimmed it out before wrapping around a pencil. This is critical for getting the sizing correct on a wrap-around product like a pencil.

Since they did not offer purple as a custom imprint ink, I chose to pay extra and use a custom PMS color. The rest of the pencil was all stock, including the orange barrel. The result was a product of excellent quality. The logo was printed flawlessly and it has an almost painterly quality to it. All the pencils arrived in great condition and I look forward to sharing them with customers.

On the downside, it took an entire month from the date I ordered the pencils to the date of actually receiving them. I would of liked to receive them sooner, but GPP did call to tell me the custom ink was taking longer than expected. Also, the custom ink I chose was PMS 2685, which is a dark purple. However, the ink printed with more black to it than I would of liked. They rectified this with a small discount. Overall, they treated me very well and I’m satisfied with the product. I would return for future orders with them.