A Scottish illustrator has been credited with boosting the fortunes of the global pencil industry after the surprise success of her "colouring-in" books for grown-ups.

 

一位苏格兰插画师专门为成年人设计的“填色图书”意外走红，由此推动了全球铅笔产业的迅猛发展。
 

 

Johanna Basford's books of elaborately-crafted fill-in drawings have tapped into a huge demand from those seeking to switch off from iPads, laptops and computer games.

 

Now, having already topped the Amazon best-seller lists, her tomes are also giving a massive boost in global sales for high-quality pencils, as colouring-in fans compete to make masterpieces of their work.

 

Far from being a casualty themselves of the digital age, pencil manufacturers are now struggling to cope with demand, with Faber Castell, the world's largest wood pencil manufacturer, revealing that it was now having to run extra shifts at its factories.

 

"People like colouring-in because they are fed up with digital," Ms Basford, 32, told The Sunday Telegraph. "There is something nice about picking up a pencil and a pen. You are not going to get interrupted by Twitter, and there is also a childhood nostalgia¹ element to it. The last time you did a bit of colouring in, you probably weren't about thinking about mortgage or Brexit."

 

Rather like other recent middle-class crazes like allotments, ukelele playing, and home-brewing and baking, colouring-in appeals to a nostalgia for a simpler, analogue² era.

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