How this started
Over the past 5 years, I have bought just about every pen grip available for my daughter, Eloise, and never really found anything that worked.
Once evening, I was watching Eloise do her homework and could see that the joints in her thumb were being forced out of position by the pressure that she was exerting to grip the pen tightly enough to write.
I realised that if I could support the thumb, Eloise's had would be able to grip properly. But the grips that we had previously tried were providing support in the wrong places.
I took a piece of cardboard from the recycling box, rolled it up and held it in the web space between Eloise's hand and her pen and Eloise's hand immediately positioned itself correctly and she was able to write without pain.
Obviously, having her father hold a roll of cardboard next to her pen was not going to be a long term solution, so I started thinking about how to attach something to the pen. I had recently acquired a 3D printer and was having fun making various impractical accessories for the house such as set of spiral vases and a device to save tomato ketchup.
I quickly designed the first prototype in freecad, and Eloise was able to use the pen successfully with her school work.
It turns out that a 3D printing is good technology for creating the grip because it allows the manufacturer of a strong support cylinder which is attached to a sleeve that fits around the pen shaft. We have found that the grip works best when the support cylinder is as light as possible so that it has a minimal effect on the centre of gravity of the pen. 3D printing allows the production of hollow shells with lightweight internal support. It also allows the production of many sizes of grip for both right and left handed users.
I refined the idea over the past year as I learnt more about 3D printing and received feedback from Eloise.
Informal Trial
I knew that the grips worked for Eloise and I thought that they would also work with other people who have a similar problem using a pen.
On February 22 2026, I posted a message in the UK Hypermobility Syndrome facebook group asking for volunteers to test a new pen. The response to this was extremely positive and I ended up sending 10 people pens to test - 5 adults and 5 school children.
With the exception of one lady who was unable to grip a pen at all using a tripod grip, everyone else reported that the pen worked for them.
The lessons from the trial was that the correct sizing of the grip was essential to ensure a comfortable grip. My initial attempts at trying to size people hands based on photos didn't really work, so I have developed a printable sizing guide which you can download and print out to discover the size of your hand.
I also discovered that the primary school pupils needed to use pencils rather than pens at school. I have not been able to reliably attach a grip to a standard pencil, so I have developed a grip for a mechanical pencil as an alternate the the pen grip.
Patent Applied For
In order to justify the investment in a product that I hope will be able to help a lot of people. I have applied for a patent and I have also registered the product design.
Product Launch
I have set up an online store at https://writinggrip.com/ and the site is launching on 1st May 2026. Looking forward to seeing where this journey takes me.
Alan Mortis
Designer of the writing grip.
0 comments