Introduction

Crayola Supertips always get rave reviews as an affordable alternative to more expensive brands and I can definitely see why. When I started journaling every video I saw suggested them as an entry to journaling. I was a bit slow on the trigger to buy them, though I'm not sure what my hesitation was, but eventually I succumbed to the peer pressure and bought the box of 120 from Amazon in 2021.

There are lots of ways to evaluate a set of pens (and each metric may be more or less important to individuals), but when I think about whether I like or dislike a set of pens these are the factors (in no particular order) that I dwell on:

1. Ease of use
2. Look of the ink on paper after drying
3. Does it smear/smudge?
4. Does it bleed through paper or cause ghosting[1]
5. Can I use it with white out?
6. How much does it cost?
7. How vibrant are the colors and what is the color selection?

Below are some of my thoughts of the set.

Pros

• The pens are really affordable. I've seen them priced as low as $23 and as high as $26, but even at the highest it's only ~$.022 per pen. It may be the cheapest pen I own!
• Multi-use—this pen can be used in the same capacity as
  • a fineliner
  • a brush pen
  • a marker
  • a highlighter
• Doesn't bleed or ghost[1] (I tested them on 120gsm (~80lb) paper as well as in Scribbles that Matter (160 gsm/~100lb) and LEUCHTTURM1917 (80gsm/~54lb) notebooks)
• Lots of color options!
• You can get smaller sets, like 20 or 50, if the number of colors is overwhelming.
• Moderately able to blend
• Great for coloring

Cons

• Aside from the silly scents, there are not names or numbers for the colors. When I first purchased the pens I created labels using matte sticker paper and assigned each pen a uniquestion number (1 - 100). My original swatch back then has the number associated with the pen to help me identify each color.
• The pen caps more often than not, don't match the color of the marker.
• A little difficult to master thin upstrokes for script lettering (you have to keep turning the pen).
• These markers don't work well with whiteout tape. The color of the pen will change, and it becomes prone to smudges and smearing.
• Some colors look almost identifical and seem like a waste of a pen.

Summary

While I love the price and the fact that you can use these pens in more than one way, this is one of the pen sets I rarely use. I'm not sure I'd go as far as stating that I regret buying them, but if someone stole them I wouldn't replace them—I might not even notice they've been stolen...

Note, however, that a lot of my indifference about these pens is the fact that I own other pens that I feel handle each functionality better than the Crayloa Supertips. I think I would have used them heavily in high school or college when this would have been all I could afford (or all my parents would buy me).

I also want to point out that my overall feelings on the markers are due to how I journal and what I need from a pen. Because I do mostly note-style journaling, I only really only use pens for handlettering. If I were more artistic, I think I would use the supertips a lot more!

YouTube Video & Downloadable

You can download/view the swatches as well as the example page from the video in PDF from.

View the swatches

Download the literary devices page, which was created with Crayola Supertips

References and Footnotes

1. Bleed through is when ink actually leaks through the page, whereas ghosting is simply the ability to see the inkon the back side of the page.