Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil Sets vs Prismacolor Grey Marker Set: Which One Belongs in Your Journal?

If you're the person responsible for ordering art supplies—for a classroom, a workshop, or a small creative team—you've probably stared at a Prismacolor display and wondered one thing: which set am I supposed to buy?

I've been handling supply orders for a local school district for nine years. In that time, I've personally made and documented 14 significant mistakes, totaling roughly $4,200 in wasted budget. Some were small: wrong quantities. One was spectacular: an entire order of markers shipped to an old address and sat in a warehouse for three weeks. Now I keep a checklist. This article is the checklist applied to the two Prismacolor products I get asked about most: the Prismacolor Premier colored pencil sets and the Prismacolor grey marker set.

To be clear from the start: this isn't a "which is better" post. It's a "which is better for what you're making" post. And if you're learning how to make a journal—or buying supplies for a group that will be making one—the differences between these two sets actually matter.

Why This Comparison Is Harder Than It Looks

At first glance, you're comparing a rainbow to a gray-scale. The Prismacolor Premier colored pencil sets are all about color variety, layering, and blending. The Prismacolor grey marker set is intentionally limited—shadows, value, linework. But they end up used in the same place: on a journal page.

When I first started buying supplies, I assumed more colors was always better. So I ordered the largest Premier colored pencil set I could find for each classroom. It looked like a generous decision. In practice, lots of students froze. Too many choices turned a quick doodle into a twenty-minute "which blue should I use?" session. That was my first real lesson: a product isn't good or bad until you put it in context.

It's basically a trade-off between flexibility and focus. That's the framework I use now.

The Three Dimensions I Use to Compare Them

I compare these two products on three dimensions: what they do on a journal page, how they behave in a group setting, and how they survive real-world storage and use. Here's what I've learned.

1. What It Does to a Journal Page

The Prismacolor Premier colored pencil set has one undeniable advantage: the pigment payoff. The core is soft and waxy, so it lays down color quickly and blends without a lot of elbow grease. You can layer two colors and get a third, erase back to paper if you're careful, and build up the kind of texture that makes a journal cover feel handmade. For hand-lettering, botanical sketches, or color-coded habit trackers, colored pencils are genuinely hard to beat.

The grey marker set looks boring in the package. That's the trick. On paper, it becomes a lesson in light and shade. The markers dry fast, which means I can work on a left-hand page without worrying about smearing it when I close the journal. And because there's no color decision to make, the focus shifts to contrast and composition. If your journal project is about drawing an object, a portrait, or a street scene, the grey set will make you think harder than a box of 100 colors will.

Honestly, the grey marker set is the one I reach for in my own journal. I didn't expect that when I ordered it.

2. How It Behaves in a Classroom or Team Setting

For a group of beginners, colored pencils are forgiving. No bleed-through, no caps to lose, no dried-out nibs. You can hand a student a pencil and a sheet of paper, and the worst thing that happens is a broken tip—which you can fix with a hand sharpener. That makes Prismacolor Premier colored pencil sets the safer default when you're ordering for a mixed group.

Markers ask for more discipline. They can bleed through cheap paper, so you either need heavier paper or a scratch sheet underneath. The caps have to go back on, and the grey set specifically requires a certain comfort with restraint. That's a good challenge for an advanced workshop, but it's not the right tool for an open-ended "do whatever you want" session.

To be fair to markers, they're faster. With pencils, you build up layers. With a grey marker, you make a mark and it stays. For a quick observational drawing exercise, that speed is an advantage.

3. How It Survives the Real World

A colored pencil is a survivor. It won't dry out, leak, or explode. That said, the Prismacolor soft core does break if you drop it on a hard floor—or if a student tries to sharpen it with the pressure of a wood chipper. Plan on replacing a few pencils. In my experience, a set donated to a shared classroom will lose about 10–15% of its pencils in the first year. I don't have hard data on that, but based on our re-order list, it feels right.

Markers, on the other hand, dry out if caps are left off. A grey marker set is also easier to damage if someone picks it up and uses it as a highlighter. If you order markers, you need a system—caps color-coded, a clear "return to case" rule, and a regular inventory check. That maintenance is not hard, but it's a real cost.

The Surprise Part: Grey Markers Taught My Students More About Value

I did not expect this outcome when I ordered the grey marker set. I expected it to be a nice alternative for students who liked monochrome illustration. What actually happened: when I asked a group of students to draw the same object twice—once with the Premier colored pencils, once with the grey markers—the grey marker versions were consistently stronger. The lack of color forced them to notice light, shadow, and contrast instead of hiding behind a pretty palette.

That changed how we order supplies. The Prismacolor Premier colored pencil sets are still an essential part of our inventory, but the grey marker set is no longer a specialist item. It's now a core tool for teaching visual thinking.

So, Which One Should You Order?

Here's the part where I stop being careful and give you a straight answer, with conditions.

Order the Prismacolor Premier colored pencil set when…

• Your group is mostly beginners.
• The paper is ordinary printer or sketch paper.
• You want a product that can sit on a shelf for months and still work.
• You need a wide range of color choices for covers, lettering, and decorative pages.
• The budget is per-person and you want the set to last the whole semester.

Order the Prismacolor grey marker set when…

• You're running a focused workshop about drawing, shadows, or value.
• You're making a handmade journal and want a clean, minimal look.
• You have paper that can handle marker ink without bleeding.
• You need a quick, cohesive result—markers are faster than pencils in the hands of people who know what they're doing.
• You want to avoid the "which color should I choose?" paralysis.

If You're Actually Making a Journal, Here's Where These Fit In

Now, about the phrase that keeps appearing in your searches: how to make a journal. It's a bigger project than picking pencils. The basic steps are: fold paper into signatures, sew them through the spine, attach a cover, and then decorate. The Prismacolor products come in at the last step, and sometimes the cover step, but they can't fix a poorly prepared workshop.

My biggest journal-related mistake was a process gap: we planned a journal-making workshop, ordered beautiful Prismacolor products, and forgot to order a hole punch for the signatures. We ended up with sixteen people sharing one stapler. It was exactly as bad as it sounds. Now we have a pre-workshop checklist: paper cut, signatures folded, holes punched, binding thread measured. The art supplies are on the list too, but they're not the only thing on it.

Planning Math: Decimal to Fraction Calculator and Budget Limits

One practical piece of advice: do the ordering math before you place the order. I keep a decimal to fraction calculator open when I'm working with printable journal templates. 0.3125 inches means nothing to our bindery team. 5/16 inch means something. The conversion is faster on a calculator than in my head, and it prevents cut-and-paste mistakes.

I also use a limit calculator for quantity decisions. Hear me out. When a 12-count set is $30 and a 24-count set is $55, the unit price is dropping. At some quantity, the extra discount goes flat. A limit calculator helps me see what the per-unit price is approaching as the order size increases. It's the same logic as "diminishing returns," but with actual numbers. It keeps me from over-ordering one extra tier just because the price per pencil looks slightly better.

If you're not into that level of math, at least set a hard budget cap before you start comparing sets. The cheapest set on the shelf is rarely the lowest total cost once you factor in replacements, damaged goods, and rush delivery.

One more thing I've learned the expensive way: when a deadline is fixed, the cost of waiting is usually higher than the cost of rushing. In January 2025, I paid $82 for expedited shipping on a grey marker set order because a workshop got moved up a week. In isolation, that fee stung. But the workshop was already sold out at $1,200, and "probably on time" was not a risk I could take. The fee bought certainty, not just speed.

The Bottom Line

If you're a school, a training company, or a behind-the-scenes buyer, the Prismacolor Premier colored pencil sets are the dependable, flexible choice. You can hand them to almost anyone and get good results. The Prismacolor grey marker set is the focused, more opinionated choice. It will push your students—and you—to think in terms of value and restraint.

Neither one is the "right" answer in every situation. But if you know what kind of journal you're making, who's making it, and when it has to be done, the choice gets a lot easier.

Order accordingly. Learn from my mistakes.