(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
I love the idea of the Kokuyo Mark+ Dual Color Highlighter. I'm a fan of color-coded notes, and having two colors in one seems like a clever and time-saving trick. In practice, though, they fall a little short of the mark.
These highlighters have a wide, white plastic body with a clear plastic cap. The clip is also clear plastic, and quite bendy. The body does show the colors of the tips, which is nice. There's a lot of text on the body, but it's well laid out and doesn't detract from the appearance of the marker. It looks nice, like a fancy highlighter should.
The grip section is also clear plastic, and shows the double feed. It is slightly shaped and comfortable to hold, though a little slippery. The two chisel tips face away from one another and are separated by a clear plastic piece, so they don't touch.
The tips make nice crisp lines with consistent color. I had no ink pooling or smearing. It does bleed through cheap copy paper, but performs well on coated papers. I think it would work well in textbooks, but might have issues if highlighting in novels. I suspect they'd be great for planners. There was minimal smudging over fountain pen and rollerball ink, and none for pencil, gel, or ballpoint ink.
I like the available colors for these. They're not eye-searing neon, but more gentle tones. One issue, though, is that some of the darker shades are a bit too dark to be highlighters. The grey, for example, obscures text more than it emphasizes it, and it's very difficult to read pencil though it. Of course, on the body of the piece, they're referred to as markers, not highlighters. So perhaps there's some confusion of purpose at play.
Another issue I had with them is that you have to be fairly conscious of getting the right angle, if you're using the wide chisel to highlight. If you hold the marker too high, you'll get a thin line above from the tip of the other color. Which looks kind of cool, and would be neat for calligraphy, but would defeat the purpose of color coding. And I worry that, while studying, I'd be focusing on how I'm holding my highlighter instead of the text I'm highlighting. Or, more probably, I'd focus on the text and just end up making it messy with sloppy highlighting.
I still like the idea of these, and the lighter colors are lovely tones. Perhaps, with more use, I'll get used to holding them at the correct angle and won't have to think about it anymore. At $2.50 apiece, they're right in line with other specialty highlighters, and the dual-colors gives them a bit of added value.
Ultimately, these aren't flawless, but they're still clever and useful. My schoolwork is already encroaching, with enrollment and advising already underway. It's definitely time to stock up on highlighters, so having two in one sounds like a good plan.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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