Okay, gang, now I need your help! Sometimes, questions come into my inbox and I ponder and query and google and I come up with nothing. So, I’m hoping that the massive collective hive mind of stationery genius out there can help out. Maybe you use or have seen something to help Linda.
Linda is begging for help:
The notebook I have used since 2008 is now out of print. I bought all the stock I could find and am down to my last two. I need a suitable replacement but haven’t had much luck. Perhaps the Desk can advise?
What I Need:
Hardcover
B5 or a tad bigger, but not A4
White pages, not cream or ivory
Thick pages that do not bleed (Sharpies excluded, of course)
Dot grid, graph, etc. Even lined, maybe if the lines are unobtrusive
Smooth paper
I’m a fan of Apica, Kokuyo’s Campus notebooks, Rhodia dotgrid. But I can find nothing both hardcover and B5.
Any tips?
Please?
I’m getting stingy with my notetaking and brainstorming in order to make my current notebooks last.
I am at a loss to find a good replacement for you, Linda. B5 size is close to a US Composition notebook and, for some reason, this size notebook always seem to have a flexible cover, whether they are US, Japanese or European. Moleskine’s XL size is a B5 but the paper is warm white and not everyone’s favorite. The only bright white options I could find were Leucthtrum 1917 but I couldn’t find that they offered this particular size configuration in hardcover. Only softcover. So, I’m rallying the troops! Do you have a recommendation for Linda?
I got to spend the final day of the SF Pen Show being a legitimate visitor, shopper and participant which was a pleasure. I was able to wake up a little later than usual, chat with friends and visit with vendors and sellers. Several of us were a little hung over too so a slow start was nice. Shhh… can everyone talk a little quieter? Thanks. Those Aurora pens are so lovely in the morning light of the atrium.
Vanness Pens Wall of Ink
The best thing about shopping on a Sunday is that the pace is slower. Most vendors made their money on Saturday so there’s a genuine feeling of relief on Sunday. If they make money on Sunday that’s great but the busiest part is over and Sunday is gravy. For shoppers, its not as crowded and most folks are making their second, third or 12th pass over the tables seeing if they missed something or if something they saw earlier in the weekend is still there. Or if maybe a vintage seller might be willing to make a deal on Sunday if its still there. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. And sometimes its a chance to try a new style or type of pen because sellers are not as busy and have more time to talk through a filling system or brand of pen you might not be as familiar with.
I like Sundays at shows. Its a more familial environment by that time as everyone starts to recognize each other but there’s a bit of melancholy too as you know it will all be ending soon and it will be time to pack it all up and go home.
My favorite pen show clown, Mr. Brad Dowdy
And then you get goofy, fun moments like this and they remind me why I love pen shows and pen people so much. I got expressions like this from lots of people, I just didn’t have my camera out for them. Who loves ink and pens? WE DO!
The amazing aisle of ink testers
Even on Sunday, the ink testing station was still busy and pens still had ink. There were some folks who were disappointed that not all inks were available for sale at the show but I think it was hard for the organizers to know which inks were limited edition, discontinued and be able to provide a list to vendors to be able to cross reference. The whole thing is pretty epic. Any way you slice it, the chance to try all those inks, discontinued, rare or easily available is awesome and worth the price of admission right there. I know how much work it was to clean and fill all those pens and I tip my hat to the folks who put in nights and weeks to filling all 600+.
Peter Pan fountain pens with one Pelikan stuck in the middle for scale
I loved seeing this tray of Peter Pan fountain pens. The vintage dealer selling them kindly let me rearrange his display to put a Pelikan in the middle for scale for my photograph. Pretty amazing, huh? And most of them had flexible 14K nibs too. Swoon.
The amazing and ever-dapper Michael Sull, Spencerian calligrapher extraordinaire.
Once again, Mr. Michael Sull was amazing. Kind, generous, dapper and epically talented. Watching him work is mesmerizing. Like those ice skaters who spin and jump so effortlessly, he makes Spencerian look so easy and effortless. Then I pick up a pen and I feel like I’m all thumbs — or toes or something.
Actual oak galls
I met Greg Weddig who got a wild hair to make his own iron gall ink because he found oak galls on the trees near his house. I had no idea that galls were things that grew on trees but I’ll go into more details when I write a more detailed review about the ink. How cool is this?!? Its dip pen ink only but Michael Sull has taken a shining to it so, of course, I had to buy a bottle. I’m hoping it will imbue some Sull Spencerian magic on me. Think it will work?
Testing the iron gall ink from Greg Weddig, AKA Hugo’s Writing SuppliesWriting a letter at the Letter Writing Social
In the afternoon, Amanda McKay hosted a letter writing social which she called the “anti-social social” as we all settled in to quiet contemplation with our paper and pens and envelopes. Amanda provided lovely stationery, postcards and envelopes plus stickers, hand cut rubber stamps and stamp pads for folks to use. She even had a pile of pens so you really didn’t need to bring anything but your address book.
It was a lovely break in the day, dotted with occasional conversation and pen, ink and tool swapping, and I hope that it is an event that will be added to the dockets of other pen shows.
Juliavdw worked on some watercolors for a traveling sketchbook at the letter writing social.The darling Joanna working on a letter as the Letter Writing Social hosted by Amanda McKay, AKA LetterLetter.com
After the social, there was just an hour of shopping time left before the boxes and crates came out and the vendors had to pack everything back up and load up the vans and head home. I wrapped up my ridiculous quantities of ink and crossed my fingers hoping that Southwest Airlines will deliver them to KC without any damage. Cross your fingers for me too because I finally got a bottle of KWZ Honey and I want to review it this week. You want that too, right? Collective finger crossing starts now!
Brady Dowdy, Mike Vanness and Matt Armstrong packing up the Vanness Pens booth as the show winds down
Boarding my plane in ten minutes and will be back to real life soon. Miss all the folks I met in SF already and I look forward to chatting with everyone online — both those who didn’t get to a show yet and those I’ve met this year.
Since I spent my Saturday helping out at the Anderson Pens table, I didn’t get to see much more of the show than the four tables in front of me and the people who came to it. But a LOT of people come to the Andersons tables. And they are awesome people too. Some people came especially to say hi to me which was amazing and awesome and other people I was able to help buy their very first fountain pen which was equally amazing. But I thought it would be funny to show the upside down world view from my side of the table.
Sometimes the view from a pen show isn’t all the exciting
And what it looks like from behind the giant wall of ink. Not as exciting, huh? Nope. Just brown boxes back here. What you can’t see is the pile of tissues, Altoids, half-consumed lunches, bottles of water and lip balm. The things we do to keep the show going!
Buying ink is such a difficult decsision
And it was busy, busy, busy, busy. In a rare moment of quiet I snapped a quick shot of the moment of comtemplation that I saw all through the day of someone trying to decide which ink they wanted to buy.
The buyers and the sellers — all the way down the Anderson Pens table
Here’s a late afternoon long view down the trays of fountain pens with the Anderson and Jason (one of the helpers this weekend) along the right and potential buyers and friends on the left. At several points throughout the day, there were often people three deep on the lefthand side. Crazy!
And the band played on!
In the evening, there was a band that played well into the night and everyone had a good time listening to a mix of country and rockabilly. We got a little drunk and eventually got them to play Rockytop that led to a couple of us UTK alums to get pretty goofy. Yeah, free drink coupons. I’m hoping no Instagram videos surface of that!
The crowd was enthusiastic… and a little drunk.
More reports of Day Three will follow and there will be more shopping and a mail social today. If you get a chance to come for one last day of the show, this has been a really great show and totally worth the trip to Redwood, CA. Hope to see you!
Karas Kustoms brought new Delrin colors and they eye-poppingly awesome
I tried to get some photos from the San Francisco Show on Friday. Many vendors were still setting up throughout the day but it was a good day to walk around and talk to vendors and friends.
The Curnow table filled with Backpocket journals and leather traveler’s notebooksJim from Franklin-Christoph tunes up the nib on my show special Pocket 20
I even got to do a bit of shopping including getting one of those much-coveted show special editions from Franklin-Christoph. I got a Pocket 20 in a beautiful teal/turquoise swirly blue. I’ll have more details about it in a future post but its always such fun to get pictures of Jim at work tuning nibs and filing pens so that each customer leaves happy with their pen purchase.
Some of the beautiful Ranga options at Peyton Street PenA view of the Peyton Street Pens table
I also got to see all the delectable colors of the Ranga acrylics and resins from Peyton Street Pens. I fell in love with in particular that Peyton Street fitted with a vintage nib. I’ll have more details about that later too but aren’t they beautiful? Like a tray full of candy!
Bookbinders Snake Ink limited edition box sets which sold out on Friday. They will have full-sized bottle available on Saturday
Another eye catching offering in SF this year is the Snake Inks from Australia. They brought fabulously packaged 8-pack sample sets of all the colors in their range which sold out on Friday. They still have full-sized bottles available for the rest of the weekend which are equally well-packaged.
The Anderson Pens “wall of ink”You can find me today at the Anderson Pens table, helping out!
And of course, if you’re coming to the show, please come by the Anderson Pens table and say hello where I’ll be helping out on Saturday. Lots of fun stuff to buy too including the “wall of ink,” lots of paper and tons of amazing pens like Sailor, Lamy, Pilot and more. See you soon!
After I wrote my post on the new Facebook office spaces, my friend Andy made me put my money where my mouth was and invited me to Facebook to tour the offices for myself. Since that was one of my most commented upon posts I couldn’t pass up the chance to see the campus for myself.
Was the campus overwhelmingly large? Yes. So much so that there are shuttle buses and bicycles to get people from building to building. But is also filled with light and art and posters and a sense of play. It was also a lot quieter than I expected it to be. People were very respectful of the open seating and kept their voices down in the open areas. They used the closed conference rooms and outdoor areas, the coffee shops and other communal areas for conversations. It was actually a very congenial environment and not at all what I was expecting.
There was so much art. And posters and graphics all pinned haphazardly to the walls which gave the space a casual vibe and made it feel partially like a college campus and partially like Disneyland for coders.
I also work in a large office with tons of cubicles and an ongoing attempt to have “open seating” despite the photo from the previous post, Facebook’s space actually has a warm comfortable vibe of a loft apartment rather than a corporate office that stripped all the walls out of the cubicles. Each employees space has personal touches that show their personality, some more than others, of course. Some folks work on large desktop machines while others work on laptops to be more mobile. Some people work on mobile apps and just wander around with their phone in their hands. What a way to function!
All in all, it was an inspiring day and I feel quite differently about the landscape, both inside and out, of the Facebook offices. And I’m supremely jealous that the weather is such in California that Facebook employees can essentially work outside in the roof garden 11 months out of the year. Makes me dread January in KC.
For even more photos, check out my full Facebook HQ album on Flickr. And yes, I’m eating my words a little now. At least they taste like asian noodle bowl and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
After multiple weeks of going into work on Saturdays and/or Sundays in an effort to catch-up on work, I finally broke down and requested a laptop for work. I’m giving up my trusty, giantess iMac 27″ that I’ve been using. I’ll miss the luxury of acres of screen real estate, but I’m hoping to reclaim a little bit more time at home.
Having a work laptop means seeking out a new carry-all bag that could fit a large 15″ MacBook Pro when needed. Thanks to the a shoutout on Twitter last week, I got lots of recommendations. If you’ve ever in the market for a laptop bag, I thought I’d share some of the recommendations I received. Many were recommended more than once, often with caveats of having withstood years of use and abuse and traveled hundred or thousands of miles. I was so glad to see that folks were so satisfied with their bags — from so many different bags.
I absolutely loved how unique and interesting the Cote & Ciel bags looked but the ones I liked the best were too small for the behemoth laptop sadly. And many of the bags large enough to truly hold a 15″ laptop for me were just too big (I’m only 5’4″) or too business-y looking for days when I might not need to schlep the laptop around. In the end, I had a nice chat with the folks at Tom Bihn who assured me that I could squash a 15″ laptop into The Maker’s Bag though it is not recommended. I just need to get it from the office to my car to my house and back — and usually just on the weekends so I’m willing to take my chances. (Just don’t tell my IT dept I said that!). So I placed my order this morning, before I hopped on a plane for SF. I also ordered their tool/pen wrap which can double as a DPN keeper (the knitters will know what that is!). How cool is that? So I think I’ll have a great EDC and can cram the behemoth laptop in when I need to.
Should I need to transport my laptop for a business trip I have an enormous Timbuk2 backpack that I bought for a trip to China a few years back that’s so big I could use it as a sleeping bag in a pinch.
Big shout out to everyone on Twitter who helped me on my hunt: Arman, Lee, Tindra, Ray, Calligraphy Nut, A Better Desk, Carmina, Dave, Jojo, Sandra, Ken, Brad and Daniel and even the folks at Tom Bihn!
This week on Art Supply Posse we talk about back-to-school rituals, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils and do a little follow-up about the A-word. It’s not our most art supply-centric episode – we’ll be back in our 1-subject notebooks next week. Also, we had a little recording issue so if the sound quality is a little off, that’s why. Our apologies, just grab your sketch tools and doodle through the episode and you won’t notice a thing!
