The other day I found a pen that I don’t fully understand. It has a name that’s too long in any language.

In Japan it’s the Style Fit Single Color Holder  (スタイルフィット 単色ホルダー) but in English it’s the Uni Style Fit Single Color Slim Gel Ink Pen. In either language, it seems to be a single ink version of the Uni Style Fit Multi Pen that holds either three ink refills or five.

The version I found has a 0.28 mm tip and orange ink. It is silver with a clear section and an orange nock.

I used the Style Fit for a few batches of morning pages and for my daily 10 Ideas. It writes smoothly, and I found the .28 mm line growing on me. It wasn’t scratchy, even on copy paper, but the pen is too slender for me to hold comfortably. It’s thinner than a wood-case pencil.

The clear section on the Uni Style Fit Holder.

I also found the orange ink to be too bright for my taste. That said, it would make an excellent way to highlight text whilst taking notes in a meeting or a class. The pen was also thin enough to fit inside the cover of a Midori Traveler’s Notebook, although it would require some modifications to make it stay in place securely.

What I don’t understand is the exact purpose of this pen. (And, yes, I am the kind of guy who ponders a pen’s purpose in life.) The refill can be pulled out and placed in a multi pen, making the pen a kind of active refill storage device. It’s like a way to use your refill if you have six inks but only five places in your multi pen. It’s also a way to write if you are too lazy to actually change out an empty refill.

I’m glad I found it and got a chance to play with it, but I doubt I’ll be buying one for myself. Instead, I’ll be returning this one to the room from whence it came.

A full length shot of the Style Fit on a Field Notes notebook. You see traces of the line off to the right.