At Steel City, we know that when you put your logo on a pen, you want it to be kept, used in meetings, and taken home – not thrown away because it feels cheap or fails early. It’s really important that our suggestions match your budget but still deliver on quality. Our choices focus on ink life, print placement, and the things that usually go wrong once pens live in pockets, laptop bags, and desk drawers.
- Long-Lasting Ink: We’ll always suggest refillable bodies and long-life ink because we want that pen to keep writing day-to-day. It stops the product from being discarded and keeps your branding in view for much longer.
- Generous Print Areas: We steer clients towards pens with defined, generous print areas so your logo doesn’t get lost. It’s really important that your branding is legible at arm’s length, whether you’re handing them out at an exhibition or leaving them on a desk.
- The Right Branding Method: We take a consultative approach to recommend spot print, full-colour digital, or engraving based on the material. We want to make sure the logo doesn’t rub off and looks exactly how you envisioned it – not different in-hand than it did on screen.
- Proof Before Production: We always provide a visual proof before production because we need to be sure you are happy with the size and position. It removes the risk of opening boxes just before an event and finding something isn’t right.
- Lead Times You Can Trust: We know lead times are a popular question. We offer standard and express options from proof approval, so if you have an urgent event date, we can usually make something work and help you pick a product that will arrive in time.
- Sustainable Options: It’s really important that we don’t greenwash. We put forward recycled and certified materials like GRS recycled aluminium, recycled plastics, and rPET, or European-made lines, so you have the full traceability and evidence you need for your internal procurement.
- Reliable Mechanisms: We favour click and twist actions that keep working because a sticky mechanism is the quickest way for a pen to be abandoned. We want these to be reliable for quick notes in meetings or daily use at reception.
The products listed above are our starting point – the standards we trust for quality and lead time – and we can always take the decision down and narrow it from there to find bespoke options if you have specific needs.