| Type | kabushiki gaisha |
|---|---|
| Industry | Stationery |
| Founded | 1921 [1] |
| Headquarters | Morinomiya-chuo, Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Teiichi Nishimura (President) [1] |
| Products | Art materials |
| Revenue | ¥ 90 million [1] |
| Employees | 1,200 [1] |
| Subsidiaries | Talens Japan (Osaka and Tokyo) Shin Nihon Zokei (Tokyo) Daishowa Printing (Osaka) Royal-Talens B.V. (Netherlands) Bruynzeel-Sakura B.V. (Netherlands) Sakura Color Products of America, Inc. (US) Shangai Sakura Stationery (Shanghai, China PR) |
| Website | www.craypas.com |
Sakura Color Products Corporation (株式会社サクラクレパス) is a Japanese company headquartered in Morinomiya-chuo, Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan, which produces a variety of stationery items. Although the firm commercializes a wide range of products, Sakura is more known by its marker pens, such as the Micron lines.
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The company was initially founded as a crayons manufacturer in 1921. By 1925, Sakura invented the first-ever oil pastel that combined oil and pigment, which was patented globally as the "Cray-pas" trademark.
In 1982 the firm launched its famous "Pigma" marker pen lines.
In 1984 Sakura invented the first gel-based ink, featured in its new ballpoint pens lines. Gel ink pens are currently produced by many stationery companies nowadays.
The North-American division of the company, "Sakura Color Products of America, Inc." was established in Hayward, California in 1986. Other division of Sakura in Asia, "Shanghai Sakura International Trading Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 上海櫻花文化用品有限公司)" was established in Shanghai, China in 2002.
The following is a list with the large range of products commercialized by Sakura: [2]
| Category | Products |
|---|---|
| Pens | ballpoint pens, gel ink pens, refills |
| Pencils | Mechanical pencils, colored pencils |
| Markers | Water based and permanent marker pens, highlighters, brush pens |
| Writing accessories | Erasers, whiteboard erasers, glue pens |
| Art materials | Crayons, pastels, oil pastels, water colors, acrylic paints, gouaches, oil paints, water-soluble printing colors, brushes, palettes |
Sakura "Pigma" markers have been widely used by a many comic book artists to ink their pages. Some of them are George Pérez and Ethan Van Sciver.