Tomorrow, Laura and I are packing up and driving south to Little Rock for the Arkansas Pen Show. We hope that if you’re within shouting distance, we’ll see you there this weekend. If not, you can follow along with our adventures on Instagram and we’ll post a recap here next week.
Lots of paper-related links this week and recaps from Baltimore and London Pen Shows. Most importantly though, Tools and Toys reviews the best coffeemaker ever built. It’s Desk-tested. Desk-approved.
Late-Breaking News!
Laura discovered yesterday that F+W Media, publisher of dozens of publications including HOW, Print, Interweave Knits, Writer’s Digest and The Artist’s Magazine, filed for bankruptcy. Since many readers here are of a creative pursuit, you may read or have read one of their many publications. Here are a couple links to articles regarding the bankruptcy thus far.
- F+W Media, Citing Debt, Decline And Mismanagement, Files For Bankruptcy Protection (via Forbes)
- Two Years At F+W Media: Behind The Scenes At A Company In Chaos (via Forbes)
- Writer’s Digest, Popular Woodworking publisher F+W Media files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (via USAToday)
While many publishing companies have continued to tighten their belts, moving to online only or shuttering their business altogether, I believe that niche publications still have a place in the market. I also believe that magazines, in general, are having a resurgence. Publications are curated, collected and, like many of the things we enjoy, offer an analog experience. They provide a chance to read quietly. Even publications full of ads, don’t interrupt your reading experience with a pop-up ad requiring one to click a check box to close it. Ads within a magazine are often curated to the audience of a publication as well. Reading an outdoor magazine? Chance are, the ads are for camping gear, REI and the like.
Magazines also provide time capsules. While we might look back on a publication from five years ago and roll our eyes at the fashion, the font choices or some other aspect of the magazine. When we see a magazine from 50 years ago, there is a fascination with the whole world embodied in the magazine, be it a fishing publication or a knitting one.
Two aspects of a publication (the aesthetic and the individual unit) present the reader with a unique experience in content and context. The design elements like layout, type design, and photography can be experienced in a more comprehensive way, throughout the publication, from masthead to page number. The publication can also be curated editorially from cover to cover in a way that may not be as meaningful when scrolling through a sea of text online.
This complete experience is what continues to make magazines engrossing and artifacts of our world.
Pens:
- Overlooked and Underloved: Three Fountain Pens That Don’t Get the Attention They Deserve (via The Gentleman Stationer)
- Kaweco Fox Sport (via United Inkdom)
Ink:
- Green Ink Comparison (via Mountain of Ink)
- Bungubox 4B (via Ink Sharks)
- Review: Diamine Evergreen (via Alt. Haven)
- Five J. Herbin Inks: An Overview (via The Pen Addict)
Notebooks & Paper:
- A Notebook from the C.O. Bigelow Apothecary (via Notebook Stories)
- Glamabasic Schoellershammer Microdraft Tracing Paper (via Gourmet Pens)
- Logical Prime Notebook Review (via Fountain Pen Love)
- Kokuyo Buncobon Dot Cover Notebook Review (via The Pen Addict)
- Minimalism Art Classic Notebook (via Comfortable Shoes Studio)
- Hobonichi Weeks Review. (via The Finer Point)
- Notebook Addict of the Week: From the Pen Cup (via Notebook Stories)
- Barrister’s Notebook Blue Book Counsel’s Notebook (via Notebook Stories)
Art & Creativity:
- Roman Szmal Aquarius watercolours (via Jane Blundell)
- Handmade watercolours from Lost in Colours (via Jane Blundell)
- Daniel Smith new watercolours (via Jane Blundell)
- Colored Pencil Smudging Tests with Blenders (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)
Other Interesting Things:
- Franklin-Christoph Penvelope Six-Pen Case (via The Pencilcase Blog)
- Technivorm Moccamaster KB Drip Coffee Maker (via Tools and Toys)
- A Fountain Pen Aficionado’s Charter of Demands (via Inked Happiness)
- Book Review: Adventures in Stationery by James Ward (via Pens and Junk)
- Good Posture: Its Importance, Benefits, and How-To (via The Art of Manliness)
- Papelote A5 Notebook Strap (via Gourmet Pens)
Pen Shows:
- The London Pen Show makes a fresh start for Spring (via UK fountain pens)
- Spring 2019 London Writing Equipment Show (via dapprman)
- Baltimore Pen Show Recap – 2019 (via The Looped Square)
- What Makes a Pen Show “Great”? Takeaways from the 2019 Baltimore Pen Show (via The Gentleman Stationer)
Wow, thanks for the news about F+W — I hadn’t heard that! I published numerous beaded jewelry designs in a couple of their magazines more than a decade ago and still receive (tiny) royalty payments for some of them that are sold online. I guess I won’t see those checks anymore!
Not necessarily. It’s definitely worth following the case and how it resolves. If anything, maybe you can get the rights back?