Speaking of pens, our friend Stephanie “Biffybeans” from Spiritual Evolution of the Bean recently tested some colorful fountain pen inks from QV sister company J. Herbin.
Do you write in color? Check out her overview of 10 different J. Herbin inks, or her in-depth reviews of the Rouge Caroubier, Rouge Bourgogne, and Poussiere de Lune colors.
Put Things Off (PTO) is a blog written by Nick Cernis, a 26-year-old web developer from West Yorkshire in the UK. PTO talks about productivity, freelancing, travel and much more.
In one of his posts, Nick talks about his switch back to paper from PDAs. It caught my eye, because one of our customers recently emailed us saying we had to do more to publicize the benefits of paper vs. electronic.
One of the pages of this year’s Quo Vadis catalog will do just that – focusing on the creativity and individuality paper and pen or pencil can spark. This page will also be added to our website, with perhaps an interactive component where people can add their comments on why they like to organize, record, create on paper, and why it’s better, cheaper, faster than electronic for making lists and jotting things down.
Here are Nick’s “13 Reasons”:
1. It’s faster. I challenge anyone to fire up their PDA or phone and enter their upcoming tasks and appointments for the week in less time than it takes them to do it on paper.
2. It’s cheaper.
3. It’s always accessible.
4. It’s always charged up.
5. There’s no learning curve.
6. It encourages creative thinking. There’s no faster way to brain storm ideas than with a piece of paper and a pencil. Using it every day encourages creative thinking and builds your idea bank.
7. You don’t have upgrade it.
8. It’s a break from the screen.
9. It’s less anti-social.
10. Your handwriting will improve. Handwriting is a dying art form. Mine is still atrocious, but it has improved no end since I’ve gone back to paper productivity systems. There is nothing quite as wonderful as a brilliant message written in a beautiful hand. Learn to take pleasure in your handwriting–it’s a simple joy but one that’s worth chasing.
11. Your friendly police officer uses it.
12. It’s been proven by time.
13. David Allen says so. In David Allen’s own words: “The simpler and the faster you can make simple lists and access them, the better. Whatever any applications do support that, I go, “that’s great,” but quite frankly it’s hard to beat just paper and pencil.”
I don’t think of myself as someone who’s picky about pens, but at some point during college I developed a strong preference for the Pilot V-Ball (extra fine), and after that I never looked back. It seemed like an unfussy choice: it was a good pen with good ink in unadventurous colors. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t cool. It worked.
Best of all, it used to be easy to find at drugstores and supermarkets. Alas, that’s no longer the case, and I’m not quite sure what to do. I guess never realized how attached I’d grown to my V-Balls until I tried some other pens.
The Pilot “Precise Zing” has great ink, but I’m not wild about that thick silver, blue, and purple plastic case. The less fancy and still ubiquitous Pilot Precise seems like a solid choice, but the nib just feels too thin—like I could bend it if I pressed too hard. Ink from the Sanford uni-ball flows unevenly on the first stroke, and the Pilot EasyTouch does nothing to mitigate my dislike of ball point pens.
Eventually I broke down and ordered a couple of new V-Balls from the Pilot website. It’s now obvious that my “strong preference” has turned into a full-fledged addition, but never mind.
Are you picky about pens?
A Brooklyn, NY man has figured out how to combine his love for popping bubble wrap with calendars.
Stephen Turbek, 36, who works in the financial industry, spends his free time designing and producing interactive bubble wrap calendars. Turbek fashions the “pop-a-day” calendar using a long sheet of paper with the month and dates printed in columns, and covers the whole thing with a covering of bubble wrap.
“Like many people,” Turbek said, “I really enjoy popping bubbles. I thought it would be fun to put it to some purpose.” 
There’s even a market for bubble calendars overseas. Turbek says he has shipped them to Australia, Latvia, Korea and Japan. Turbek has a German and Japanese version of the calendar, and wants to produce even more language options next year.
“It’s the universal appeal of popping bubbles,” he said.
See all the bubble calendars here.
A couple weeks ago, Nicole was at the American Apparel on Broadway and 73rd, and she spied this display of Rhodia pads right in front of the “vintage” gold chains. We’re hip! (Who knew?)
There’s a forum about notebook sizes over at the Fountain Pen Network that got me thinking recently…
Like CharlieB and others, I use differently sized notebooks for different kinds of writing (though I prefer a more eclectic assortment of Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Habana, and whatever else is around). And while I don’t like writing in anything smaller than 4 x 6 inches, I love the tiny staplebound Clairefontaine 3 x 4 notebooks—especially when I don’t feel like carrying a big handbag and I still want to have something to write on.
When it comes to planners, though, my needs are dictated mostly by considerations of portability and schedule. I don’t usually have a ton of meetings on any given day, and I keep track of phone appointments on my Outlook calendar since I’m absolutely dependent on their automatic reminders when I’m at my desk. So the Sapa X is perfect for me, and it doesn’t take up a lot of room in my bag, either.
Nonetheless, we’ve definitely gotten emails from customers who say they select their planner format because they prefer to write on a specific size. Some of them are very particular—one guy even told us that the best size for a planner was around 5 x 7 inches, in his opinion.
So how about it? What size is your ideal calendar? Do you select a bigger or smaller size because it’s what you prefer to write on, or because it’s what fits your schedule?
We have gotten about 10-15 emails from people telling us how much they hate the new Trinote.
That’s practically an avalanche of email on a particular subject.
Here’s one such message: “I just got the 2009 version and dont like the font change or what ever typographic changes were made. it looks squished and even though it seems the measurements between the lines of time are the same it just seems less clear. the line weight has increased. my vote is go back to what worked for years.”
Would anyone else like to comment on the 2009 Trinote? Does anyone out there like the new format?
We will continue to forward your comments and concerns to the product development managers in France. The films for the 2010 Trinote are already done, so there is nothing we can do about next year. And, since the Trinote and all the other formats are the same internationally, we cannot make changes for just the United States or Canada.
However, we do bring the complaints, praise, concerns and suggestions we receive from Quo Vadis customers to the French design team. We will be speaking with them before the end of this month to address the issues that have been raised on the new look Trinote.
You can make your voice heard. Please write to us, or comment via this blog. Thank you for taking the time to write.
Very Happy New Year wishes to all.
