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Hong Kong Stationery Bounty

Author AnaPosted on 3 Comments

Shopping For Stationery Products In Hong Kong

Finally, I got out in Hong Kong and got to do a little shopping. Needless to say, my first stop was the humongous shopping area in Kowloon called Harbour City. Inside was a large Muji shop and the notorious CitySuper (notorious to me since I stalk Patrick of Scription fame). Both were totally worth the hype and I’ll have several follow-up reviews of individual products, not to mention a plan to visit both of them again before I head back to the States.

Most people are already familiar with the minimalist-designed Japanese design store Muji. They sell all sorts of products for life and home including lots of inexpensive, simply designed office products. I purchased a few of their gel and roller ball pens, notebooks, stationery sets and their 3-pack of washi tape in brown, grey and tan and a gorgeously Japanese tape dispenser for only a couple dollars US.

CitySuper is a large scale international grocery store with kitchenware, liquor, stationery and gift products. If you are an American and European ex-pat in Hong Kong, you will want to know about CitySuper. I had to see the assortment of stationery products and I was not disappointed. I bought a camera charm for my Pelle though I may go back for a Midori Travelers Notebook just because I love that I can just walk in and buy it, not order it or wait for it to ship. I found a wide elastic to wrap around an A5 sized notebook with a leather divder three writing tools. I found a Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil with built-in sharpener and cap as well as replacement pencils, each under $5US. I also stocked up on Pilot Hi-Tec C Coleto refills, because I could.

I also went a few blocks over to the mall that had the CitySuper LOG-ON shop which was similar to the CitySuper at Harbour City but with more statonery, photo and personal goods and a lot less food product. I hope to go back and browse next weekend when I have a bit more time.

My last stationery find was a little office supply shop along the street that was catering more to local shops and office workers and less to the tourist trade. They had a large spinner of self-inking stamps for about $3US each that said things like “RECEIVED” with the corresponding Chinese translation as well. Do you think I need one?

There will be more in-depth reviews and descriptions in the future when I get back to the States but I didn’t want any of my fine readers to think I’d been slacking on my hunt for office goodies, worldwide.

Cheers from Asia, Ana

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Ko-Rec-Type

Author AnaPosted on 7 Comments

Ko-Rec-Type

A recent thrift score was this box of unused Ko-Rec-Type, typewriter printing error correction paper. The concept behind this material was to back space over to your mistype, insert this white paper into the typewriter, retype the mistyped characters, thereby “deleting” the original letters as the Ko-Rec-Type has white film that would cover your mistake.

Ko-Rec-Type box

Each sheet has little perforated segments of correction paper that can be used or removed as needed and each sheet is wrapped in a glossy sleeve with the same rad graphics on it that appear on the cover of the box. On the back of the wrap are the instructions for use. Crazy!

Directions for Ko-Rec-Type

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Pantone mess no more

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment

Pantone Chip disaster

As a designer, one of the most common bits of detritus on my desk are little squares of color known as Pantone chips. There is one or two in the dish under my monitor, a couple more in a desk drawer, a few more tacked to a 3×5 and so on. But for every one chip that is actually used for a project, there are three or four others that get pulled out of the book for comparison or consideration. The key here is that Pantone color books are VERY expensive so no one ever throws away an unused chip. So, what do we do with all those leftovers?

Getting them organized by color

Enter Slip. It is a heavy-duty plastic sleeve with little slots to hold unused chips in a truly usable way. Being a little OCD, I organized my chips into the Slip sleeves by color but they can be filled by project, in numerical order or all hurdy-gurdy if you prefer. But you can see each chip so you can easily find a chip that may have been pulled out of the book before tearing a new chip. Genius!

All tidied up with Chip Slips!

Packs of five pages are $12.95 and packs of ten are $19.95.

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Drum roll please….

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment

I received 46 entries into the travel desk giveaway for a $25 gift certificate for Jet Pens. So, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the winner is:

Well, Azizah, I hope the gift certificate will help you get all your travel needs sorted before your trip! Congrats! And thanks to everyone else who participated. I had such fun reading everything people would pack for their writing, drawing, note-taking journeys.

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Travel Week: Flying With Fountain Pens (and other options)

Author AnaPosted on 11 Comments

Kaweco Guilloch 1930 EF

One of the last, but in my opinion most important, issues to cover for traveling is how to travel with fountain pens. I’ve had lots of people warn me about it so I thought I’d find some research and share it here.

The biggest myth around flying with pens, fountain or otherwise is that they will explode. All my research suggests that the worst fate you might face is that the pen would leak. According to Penspotters:

The cabin pressure on the typical jetliner is maintained at about 10psia (0.7 atm), corresponding to the air pressure at about 10,000 feet of altitude. Although you reach this lower pressure within 30 minutes or so of takeoff, the air inside your pens is still at the ground-level pressure of 15psia (1 atm), and will take a very long time to equalize. This puts some pressure on the liquid ink, and can cause it to blot as you write, or to ooze or spurt from the pen even if you don’t use it.

…

Whenever you fly with pens, whether in checked baggage or as carry-on, you should make sure that the pens are either completely full (so that no air is trapped inside), or completely empty and clean (no ink to leak out). If possible, make sure the pens are kept points-up, which will make cleanup a bit easier should they leak.

So, if you are concerned that a pen might leak, store them upright (tip facing up) in a plastic bag during the flight to protect the interior of your bag. I plan to carry my Kawecos empty for the flight and pack a few cartridges and/or some sample ink vials and a syringe to refill (C’mon, my April Ink Drop samples just arrived!).

If you are not a fountain pen user but are concerned that other writing instruments might revolt on you mid-flight, you may want to consider a pen that has been designed specifically to tackle the challenges of the pressurized cabin like the UniBall Vision Elite or RT, Pilot Precise V5/V7 RT or the Pilot VBall RT. Ballpoint pens seem to be a good choice for many people in-flight and handling the rigors of pressurized cabins. A Fisher Space pen is a good option as it was designed to handle the pressure of space travel, so it can probably handle a domestic flight. And, of course, you can’t go wrong with a pencil though I would recommend packing a travel sharpener to keep pencil shavings neat or a mechanical pencil.

(Sites referenced in this post: Moleskinerie, Richard’s Pens, Budget Travel, The Pen Addict, Pen 4 U, Writer’s Bloc, Nibs.com, Levenger)