Since 1933, the Caran d’Ache Sharpening Machine has been a fixture of Swiss classrooms, helping generations of children turn their imagination into words and drawings. In the hands of MB&F creative designer Maximilian Maertens, that utilitarian object takes on an entirely new character: lifted onto powerful gorilla-like limbs, the sharpener tilts forward as if poised to move across the desk.
The GorillaSharpener began as a series of 2D sketches capturing the animal’s distinctive stance, before being translated into a 3D artwork. Maertens then worked through the technical constraints of moulding and construction to make that posture possible. Unlike Caran d’Ache’s traditional Sharpening Machines, which are designed to rest flat on a surface, the GorillaSharpener appears to hover above the desk on its stainless-steel and cast-iron limbs.
Finished in Alpine Frost blue, the GorillaSharpener combines zinc alloy, steel and chrome-plated mechanical components. Each piece is delivered in a special case, complete with an instruction booklet, a clamp for securing it to a desk or table, and a set of Caran d’Ache wooden pencils presented in special packaging featuring artwork by Maxime Schertenleib, a regular MB&F collaborator.
“I’d had the idea for the GorillaSharpener for quite some time,” shares Maertens. “Gorillas are fascinating animals – one of those animals you probably don’t want to encounter unexpectedly in nature. There was also another connection in my mind: our earlier DinoSharpener reminded me of Godzilla, and Godzilla needs a counterpart. Which is, of course, King Kong.”
The GorillaSharpener follows an earlier collaboration between Caran d’Ache and MB&F around the same iconic Sharpening Machine. In 2024, the two brands created the DinoSharpener, adding dinosaur-like legs to the familiar object to turn it into a light-hearted mechanical sculpture. The relationship between Caran d’Ache and MB&F goes back even further: in 2016, the two Swiss brands created Astrograph, an extraordinary rocket-inspired writing instrument.
Now the GorillaSharpener sits on your desk – where ideas are born – as a quiet reminder that even the smallest rituals can still carry a little wonder.
The GorillaSharpener is a limited edition of 300 pieces, available exclusively through the MB&F eShop, M.A.D.Galleries, MB&F LABs and the MB&F Lounge in New York.
World Gorilla Day – September 24
To help protect the remarkable animals that inspired the GorillaSharpener, MB&F has become a partner of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund – the world’s largest and longest-running organisation dedicated to gorilla conservation – through the symbolic adoption of the historic Pablo mountain gorilla group in Rwanda. Founded in 1967 by famed primatologist Dian Fossey, the organisation has been protecting and studying gorillas for six decades.
Named after the historic silverback Pablo, whom Dian Fossey first studied in 1974, the Pablo group was formed in 1993 and has been monitored and protected by the Fossey Fund ever since. Pablo died in 2008, but the group that bears his name continues to be studied and protected today. The Pablo group is also at the heart of the 2026 Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough, which returns to Attenborough’s first encounter with Pablo as a baby and follows Pablo’s group in Rwanda today. The group currently numbers around 20 gorillas, with new infants expected soon.
Through the partnership, MB&F contributes to the Fossey Fund’s ongoing daily protection of endangered mountain gorillas, whose global population remains just over 1,000. The support helps fund protection teams, equipment, scientific research, transport and the day-to-day operations required to protect these remarkable animals and their fragile habitat.
For more information:
- on the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund: gorillafund.org
- on the Pablo Group: https://gorillafund.org/life-of-pablo/
