REVIEW: STILFORM ARC GEL PEN

Stilform. By now, you've probably heard of this German-based minimal design brand, born in the cradle of crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Certainly, if you frequent this little space on the interwebs, you've come across one of my reviews of their earlier Kickstarter projects: The Stilform Kosmos pen, or Ink fountain pen. Their latest design follows in Stilforms - by now well-known - style, with more magnetic mechanism action of course, but built around a different style of refill: We're looking at the Stilform Arc gel pen. Stilform sent one over for review and I've been playing with it for the past couple of months now, so I think it's about high time I give my opinions on it!

The Arc can still without a doubt be classified under the minimal design moniker, no surprises there. Designwise, the Arc utilizes elements we've seen before on Stilform's Ink fountain pen: a straight cylindrical overall shape, two large flats that run the entire length of the pen, pronounced chamfered edges, and a rounded cap finial. 

The featureless -almost monolithic - design of the Arc is interrupted slightly by the introduction of a functional design element at the back of the barrel: a noticeable step-down, and a short cylindrical part (also with nicely chamfered edges, of course!) protrudes from the barrel to seat the cap securely when posted. Interestingly, with the cap removed, the front and back of the pen are almost perfectly symmetrical...with the exception of the pen tip that extends out the front, of course.

Stilform being Stilform, the barrel has magnets too, so the cap is held on magnetically even when posted...and it aligns with the flat sides too! Attention to the small (and sometimes hidden!) details is the name of the game with minimal design, and Stilform provides with surprisingly complex engineering under the hood, especially for a pen that looks so deceivingly simple from the outside! The magnets in both the cap and the barrel finial are adjustable to make the cap align both when closed, AND posted. If you order just the pen itself, that should be a non-issue, as alignment is checked during assembly (For what it's worth, my pen came perfectly aligned out of the box).

However, the Arc can also be purchased with a magnetic ruler that acts both as, well... a ruler, and a desk pen-style base. I didn't receive the ruler add-on to try out, so I can only say that it looks kind of cool from the pictures (although we've seen a couple pen+ruler combos from various brands on Kickstarter, and I've never felt too strongly about any of them, to be honest!). The magnet of the ruler can be misaligned out of the box, so they include a tool to adjust the magnets of the pen. Clever!

The aluminium version I was sent has an anodized finish in the Night sky blue finish. The finish has held up very well in the few months I've been using it - and I've used it quite a bit, I have to say! Some very minor wear spots are beginning to show at the edges where cap and barrel meet... probably because I'm quite a fan of fidgeting with the magnetic mechanism, so some wear is to be expected!

L to R: Ensso Piuma, Stilform Kosmos, Stilform Arc, Stilform 'old' Kosmos Ink, Stilform New Ink, Lamy Safari, Lamy 2000

The Stilform Arc measures 14.3 cm/ 5.61" closed, and 12.3 cm/ 4.84" open. With the cap posted (I found myself using it like this most of the time) it's still a very comfortable size: 14.9 cm/ 5.87". This aluminium version has a pleasant 25g total weight, while the titanium version comes in at a more hefty 37g. 

The Arc is notably quite slim, with a diameter of 10.5 mm/ 0.41" that goes down to 9.2 mm/ 0.36" at the thinnest part because of the flat sides. Compared to the new Ink fountain pen that was made a bit thicker and larger overall, the Arc is a bit of a departure and my hand required some adjusting to it, finding a comfortable way to grip it. The way you hold the pen is also obviously influenced by the two flat sides that run the entire length of the pen, where I found it most natural to rest my thumb on one of the flats. Unlike the Ink fountain pen, where a completely round section underneath the cap provides you with a comfortable grip, The Arc doesn't have a dedicated section, so you hold the pen somewhere along the barrel instead.

That said, the design does make sure that you can hold the pen as far up the barrel as you desire, and the fact that the cap posts so securely (the satisfying posting mechanism makes it one of the select few pens that I use posted almost exclusively!) makes it a lengthy pen so you have all the freedom to hold it as you please. 

The Arc is a gel pen, and as such it comes stock with a Pilot Juice Up needlepoint-type gel pen cartridge. With the Pilot Juice critically acclaimed as an excellent refill, it's not a strange choice, although it is interesting to see something other than Pilot's G2 (even though it's no secret that I love that refill to bits!). The Juice Up is supposed to be a hybrid between needlepoint and a traditional gel refill, but that's mostly down to how the tip looks. Using the G2 0.5 mm refill as a benchmark, the black ink of the Juice Up - also 0.5 mm, although of course other line widths and different colors are available - looks a bit less pitch-black compared to the G2's, and the line width is essentially the same. 

After some experimentation, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, besides the Juice and Juice Up, a wide variety of refills can actually very easily be made to fit: from Pilot's own G2, and other G2-sized rollerball or gel ink refills (This website very handily presents all refills in terms of size, the 111.1 mm length refills on this page should fit), even Parker-style ballpoint refills (and all the variations that exist on that type of refill) work if you put a short spacer (a piece of an empty gel ink cartridge works fabulously to 'hack' refills!) behind it to make up for the difference in length.

I have to say, Stilform continues to impress me with every product they create. That's not surprising of course, their formula of minimal design and magnetic mechanisms, combined with a keen eye for the smaller details, simply works. At a certain point, I hope they'll also dare to stray from the beaten path and create something completely different... but for the time being, I think the Arc is an excellent pen, and a good addition to Stilforms growing product catalog. The Stilform Arc is available at an MSRP of 80€ (not including the 20€ ruler base). The titanium version is substantially less friendly on the wallet (MSRP of 130€) - as is expected for most titanium pens on the market. Overall, the Arc leans towards the pricier end for a metal pen like this, but I feel like Stilform provides the quality and cool-factor to justify the price. 

This product was sent to me by Stilform, so I could write this review. I was in no way influenced in the making of this review, the opinions shared in this review are completely my own! This post does not contain affiliate links.