Staedtler Design Journey 72 Colored Pencils Review: A Surprisingly Capable Student-Grade Set

Introduction

Staedtler is one of those names almost everyone has grown up with, from HB and 2B school pencils to erasers and highlighters. What is less well known is how much effort the brand has put into art supplies over the last five years, with ranges like the Ergo soft, the Luna watercolor pencils, and the tinted watercolor pencils earning genuine respect.

The Design Journey 72 colored pencil set sits in the middle of that push. It is aimed squarely at students, young artists, adult coloring enthusiasts, and crafters rather than fine art professionals, but our testing showed it has more depth than its positioning suggests. Here is how it performs, and where the paper you choose makes all the difference.

Who This Set Is For

The Design Journey range deliberately brings together a wide audience: student-grade artists, adult coloring book fans, and crafters. This 72-pencil set fits that brief well, offering enough colours to satisfy anyone who wants a full spectrum without paying artist-grade prices.

It is also worth noting that many Staedtler colored pencil sets historically stopped at around 36 or 48 pencils. At 72, this is one of the more complete sets the brand offers, which is reason enough for expanding collections to take a second look.

Pencil Design and Build Quality

The barrels are hexagonal with a width of around 3.4 mm, and every barrel is lacquered the same colour as the core, which makes colour identification quick and easy. Printing is minimal: “Made in Germany” and the Staedtler logo in silver on one side, with barcode and alphanumeric production codes on the other.

The core is a slim 1.5 mm, sitting inside that average barrel. In the hand the pencil feels genuinely nice, and in character it sits closest to something like the Karat Pablo: a medium-to-hard core rather than a super-soft, heavily saturated one. That hardness is exactly what gives this pencil its layering ability, which we will come to shortly.

Color Palette and Swatch Test

This is where Staedtler clearly did its homework. The 72 pencils are arranged across three layers, and the selection looks carefully balanced rather than thrown together. One layer carries the warms and reds, another moves through dark blues, sky blues, and mid blues into the greens, and the final layer covers earth tones and greys, including olive greens and dark greens.

There is not too much of any single colour family. For every hue there are light, midtone, and dark options, whether you are working in greens, blues, or purples. The swatch test on Strathmore 300 series Bristol Vellum confirmed it: the colours are bright and vibrant, applied in one heavy layer and faded out into a lighter pass with no problems whatsoever.

Layering, Blending, and the Paper Effect

The layering test on Bristol Vellum went well, but the blending test did not. Using five colours to render a simple sphere, it proved impossible to build much depth on that smooth surface, no matter how many layers went down.

The same five colours, the same layering approach, and a lower-grade Artix mixed media sketchbook with a little more tooth produced a completely different sphere: deeper, richer, and far more satisfying.

That contrast is the most important takeaway of this review. Paper transformed this pencil from mediocre to wonderful. If you choose this set, match it to a toothy surface rather than a smooth bristol, and you will get dramatically better results.

Working with Odorless Mineral Spirits

These are not artist-grade pencils designed with solvent work in mind, so most buyers will never reach for odorless mineral spirits with them. Still, we tested it: on the mixed media paper the core broke down really nicely, dissolving into smooth colour without fuss.

It is a pleasant surprise for a student-grade range, and it gives more ambitious hobbyists an extra technique to explore. Just remember the same paper rule applies: the solvent test worked on the toothy mixed media sheet, not on the smooth surface that resisted layering in the first place.

Buying Advice

If you are a student, a coloring book artist, or a crafter who wants a generous, well-balanced 72-colour palette, this set is easy to recommend. The colours are vibrant, the layering on a suitable paper is excellent, and the colour-matched lacquer makes selecting the right pencil effortless.

If your priority is heavy blending and deep saturation on smooth paper, you will likely outgrow this core hardness. That is the one trade-off to weigh before buying, and it is largely solved by choosing the right surface.

Conclusion

Staedtler has quietly upped its game in art supplies, and the Design Journey 72 set is a good example of why. It offers a thoughtfully curated palette, comfortable hexagonal barrels, bright pigment, and layering performance that shines on toothy paper. Paired with a mixed media or textured surface, it performs well beyond its student-grade label, and for its intended audience it is a set worth serious consideration.