Faber-Castell
Faber-Castell is a school supplies factory and one of the oldest German companies, having been founded in 1761.
It began as a carpentry workshop founded by Kaspar Faber, in Stein, near Nuremberg. Later, one of his descendants, Lothar Faber, turned the pencil into the world's first branded writing tool.
The marriage of his granddaughter and universal heir, Baroness Ottilie von Faber, to Count Alexander zu Castell-Rüdenhausen, gave rise to the birth of the Faber-Castell brand. Today, it continues to be owned by the same family, the eighth generation since its founder. The company is well known in Germany, where it is common to learn to write with pencils and pens of this brand. Internationally, it has a strong reputation for high-quality drawing and writing materials.
"The pencil is closely linked to our culture and has become essential for science and art," proclaimed Johann von Faber in 1898.
The company says that all Faber-Castell products are manufactured using ecological and environmentally sustainable processes and materials. For example, the company only uses wood from its own forest within a reforestation and conservation project in Brazil, where its own trees are planted and grown in areas that were deforested and subject to erosion. Faber-Castell even recycles waste from pencil production to use it to fertilize the soil.
Eight generations: The history of the company
First generation 1761-1784
Kaspar Faber made his own pencils in Stein and sold them on the market in Nuremberg starting in 1761. This year is considered the founding year of the company.
Second generation 1784-1810
In the second generation the company was known as A. W. Faber after Kaspar's son, Anton Wilhelm, took over the factory in 1784. The small family business grew and Anton Wilhelm was able to buy land and increase the index of production. This was a stage of expansion.
Third generation 1810-1839
Georg Leonhard Faber ran the pencil factory from 1810. These were difficult times, politically and economically, and G. L. Faber could not prevent the decline of the business.
Fourth generation 1839-1877
After the death of his father Georg in 1839, Lothar Faber took over the pencil factory in Stein at the age of 22. After gaining experience working for paper mills in Paris and London, major centers of international trade in those days, Lothar began to put the family business in a new situation. He developed the modern quality pencil, defined the length standards and degrees of hardness that are still used today, and was also the first to manufacture hexagonal pencils. He marked his pencils with the name A. W. Faber.
Lothar was the first pencil maker to travel to all major European countries and return with full order books. Thinking about the future, Lothar visited the New World and founded his first trading company in New York in 1849. This was followed by subsidiaries in London (1851) and Paris (1855) and representations in Vienna (1872) and St. Petersburg (1874).
With the acquisition of a graphite mine in Siberia in 1856, Lothar assured the company a source of the best graphite available at the time. Five years later he celebrated the centenary by opening a factory in Geroldsgrün, in northern Bavaria. This factory initially produced school blackboards but later became one of the most important producers of slide rules or power strips.
The A. W. Faber product range gained worldwide recognition thanks to the international sales network that Lothar successfully established over a few decades. As a result, many imitators emerged. Lothar submitted a brief to Parliament in 1874 requesting "the creation of a law protecting trademarks".
He was also co-founder of the Bavarian in 1869 (now the Trades Institution), the Union Bank of Nuremberg in 1871 and the Nuremberg Life Assurance in 1884 (now the Nuremberg Insurance Group).
In 1844 he founded one of the first health insurance programs and in 1851 one of the first orphanages in Germany. He also financed the construction of apartment buildings for his workers, schools, and a church, among other projects.
In 1867 Napoleon III sent a delegation of experts to Stein to study Faber's exemplary social aid foundations. In recognition of his services to society and the economy, Lothar von Faber, as he is now known, was awarded a knighthood for life in 1871.
Fifth generation 1877-1898
Wilhelm von Faber, Lothar von Faber's only son, joined the company in 1873 and was appointed successor in 1877. He lost his two sons Lothar and Alfred Wilhelm when they were three and four years old respectively. Wilhelm, a sensitive and artistically inclined person, suffered greatly from the loss and died young, when he was only 42 years old. He left a widow, Bertha, and three daughters: Ottilie, Sophie and Hedwig. His elderly father, Lothar, had to take over the company again until his death in 1896. After his death, the A. W. Faber company was led by Bertha, Wilhelm's widow, until the turn of the century..
Sixth generation 1898-1928
In 1898 Ottilie van Faber (1877-1944), the eldest daughter of Wilhelm von Faber and named heir, married Count Alexander zu Castell-Rüdenhausen, a member of one of the oldest noble families in Germany. His grandfather Lothar had stipulated in his will that all of his successors should bear the name Faber. Thus was born the new title of Count and Countess von Faber-Castell and the new name of the Faber-Castell company. Count Alexander took over the business in 1900.
Three years later the foundation stone was laid for the great Neues Schloss (new castle), designed by Theodor von Kramer who was then director of the Bavarian Trade Museum. This castle today is a unique monument to the architectural style of historicism and art nouveau. The castle was built in the vicinity of the factory and was connected by a tower and an archway to an existing smaller mansion. The Altes Schloss (Old Castle), a much modified Renaissance villa, had been built for Lothar Faber in 1845 by the Bavarian court architect, Friedrich Bürklein.
In 1905 Count Alexander introduced the famous Castell 9000 model green pencil, as a "symbol of a new superior quality that would stand firm against all comers." Count Alexander chose the image of the joust from 'the pencil knights'. After the Great War, Faber-Castell's subsidiary in the United States of America was confiscated and sold at auction. Similar fates befell the other companies in London, Paris and St. Petersburg. In the 1920s Count Alexander built a large new production plant in Stein. The ethereal and airy three-story complex was an exemplary modern factory.
Seventh generation 1928-1978
After Count Alexander's death in 1928, his son Roland succeeded him as head of the company. In 1931/32 Faber-Castell took control of the Johann Faber pencil factory that had been founded by Lothar von Faber's brother and with it also acquired the Brazilian subsidiary Lapis Johann Faber in São Carlos. In 1950 Faber-Castell acquired the Osmia company and began selling fountain pens under the Faber-Castell brand. However, production ended in 1975.
Between 1960 and 1977 new foreign subsidiaries were founded, including a company in France (1960), factories in Austria and Australia (both in 1962) and in Argentina and Brazil (both in 1965). Two years later Count Roland was able to recover a majority stake in Lapis Johann Faber SA of São Carlos, which had been confiscated in World War II. This is currently the largest colored pencil factory in the world.
Eighth generation since 1978
Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell took control of the company in 1978 and that same year began producing wooden pencils for the cosmetics industry. Over the next two decades a number of overseas subsidiaries and factories were established, including Malaysia (1978), which has since become the world's largest eraser factory; Hong Kong (1979); a production plant in Indonesia (1990); and a logistics center in the Czech Republic (1996). In 1997 Faber-Castell acquired a majority stake in Tecnacril, a manufacturer of technical drawing instruments in Colombia. In India it established sales offices in Bombay and a factory in Goa. A manufacturing and packaging center in Guangzhou, China, became Faber-Castell's 15th production facility in 2001. Count Anton von Faber-Castell died at the age of 74 on January 21, 2016, after suffering a painful illness. He is succeeded by his widow, Countess Mary von Faber-Castell, and by his eldest son, Count Charles von Faber-Castell.
Environmental policy
Environmental aspects are occupying an increasingly important place in the company's policy. In the mid-1980s, a unique afforestation project began in the southeastern region of Brazil. Since then it has been developed consistently and logically into a model project in both ecological and economic terms. In 1992 Faber-Castell became the first (and still remains the only) pencil manufacturer to introduce environmentally friendly water-based paint technology in Germany. Six years later the company established a production plant in Costa Rica for ribbons and pencils made from ecologically certified wood.
In Brazil, the company uses conifers that grow quickly in its forests and were planted in the former barren savanna. It also maintains its own tree nurseries and seedlings are continually transplanted to replace each row of felled trees: a sustainable ecological cycle. More than a million young trees of the Pinus caribaea type are transplanted each year on a total area of around 100 km², thousands of kilometers from the endangered Amazon rainforest. After only ten or twelve years they are large enough to be cut down, when they provide the environmentally friendly raw material for the manufacture of pencils. However, not only the materials but also the development, production methods and disposal of all types of waste have to meet certain requirements, subject to critical analysis. Faber-Castell is the only company that uses ecological water-based paint for all its wooden pencils produced in Europe.
Development of recent commercials
In 1993 Faber-Castell launched a new strategic plan for its corporate and brand image, restructuring the product range into five logical fields of competence. The field of Play and Learning is becoming increasingly important around the world.
In 1999, Faber-Castell acquired Creativity for Kids, a leading brand in the US market for creative children's items, which expanded the product line and the number of retail outlets.
In March 2000, Faber-Castell and the IG Metall union jointly signed a broad social statute, applicable throughout the world and following the guidelines of the ILO (International Labor Organization). In July 2003 Faber-Castell joined the United Nations Global Compact programme. This is intended to provide common global standards among employees, specifically in the areas of human rights, factory standards and the environment.
Company isotype
In 1905, shortly after taking over the company, Count Alexander von Faber-Castell introduced a new line of high-quality pencils to the market. To distinguish them from the competition's pencils, he had them painted the dark green color of his old regiment.
With the name Castell 9000 this line attracted attention and soon became a classic. The pencil drawing of the two knights fighting was created especially for this model and for decades adorned the boxes and cases in various variants. It was later considered outdated and fell out of use. In the early 1990s, as part of a rethinking of the company's design and image, this knight motif re-emerged as a symbol of Faber-Castell, which in a stylized form now integrates the company's isotype, along with the brand name.
Prizes
- ABC Cultural Award