Yes that's my hand. TN can't hold a thousand songs, but it holds thousands of thoughts and I can archive and pick up the past and write my future, without worrying power outage, version upgrades both hardware and software and many more reasons why I still use paper for scheduling and creative works.
Still a Newton fan, still a Mac fanatic, but I know which tools are for which purposes.
Psion, no. Palm Pilot, no. Blackberry, no. My TN and iPhone go hand in hand all the time.
(Video shot with Leica M240, stablized by youtube)
Imagine flying on a plane looking at my stationery landscape from high above. Beautiful song by Dimitri From Paris featuring Pink Martini. Yup, I was busy flying around HK/Shanghai/Japan/Korea lately. Next trips to Shanghai/Korea in October. Sorry, I'm so slow in my blog, but rest assure the instagram feed is the best place to tag on my journeys.
Syracuse
J'aimerais tant voir Syracuse L'ile de Paques et Kairouan Et les grands oiseaux qui s'amusent A glisser l'aile sous le vent
Voir les jardins de Babylone Et le palais du Grand Lama Rever des amants de Verone Au sommet du Fuji Yama
Voir le pays du matin calme Aller pecher le cormoran Et m'enivrer de vin de palme En ecoutant chanter le vent
Voir le pays du matin calme Aller pecher le cormoran Et m'enivrer de vin de palme En ecoutant chanter le vent
Avant que ma jeunesse s'use Et que mes printemps soient partis J'aimerais tant voir Syracuse Pour m'en souvenir a Paris
Why I did this update? I needed to slow down and turned down going out on Sunday, listening to Jazz radio and dwelling in these beautiful landscapes. So beautiful I had to make a video and bring everybody with me flying for just one minute.
Then all hell broke loose, there are so many stories behind each piece of treasure, I am to write just a little bit here after.
Something annoyed me for a long while, right behind my desk there is this window I hate. Normally I love windows, this one, landlord decided to replace a broken air conditioner with one that must be sealed onto the window, somehow the contractor had to glue the whole thing and the window couldn't be turned open anymore. The heat, the vibration noise, arghhhh, I couldn't even install a curtain anymore, my desktop monitor would be impossible to look at during day time. Anyways, I faced the same problem today, kid just gave me a solution which I never thought of. I got some nice Norens (Japanese fabric dividers) bought from Traveler's Factory and ITOYA, and we just clipped them onto the window and it was almost a perfect day. Beautiful Japanese design. Vibration still goes on, but it is alreay a lot better.
A few days ago, as usual I got pissed off with vague empty monkey ideas which everybody seems to have opinions about how to realize but none could specify exactly how. I could "let it go", but my problem is I couldn't bear such ugly outcome if I were not getting my hands dirty. Luckily I have the experience using SketchUp for close to 10 years now, I found a crack of time and I had to specify it clearly.
Got me into thinking: physical form follows function, conceptual form follows intentions. Yes design is an iteration process, building something starts from fulfilling function with form, great designs infiltrate aesthetics and intentions into the form in the process. Most people forget that the most important aspect of customer experience is YOUR intention, how is that being designed. Losing focus on that, you get a piece of junk sitting around doing nothing.
Got me into thinking: form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Buddhist's word.
Got me into recalling: "Who? Who is but the form following the fuction of what and what I am is a man in a mask". V for Vendetta.
Back to stationery. I usually use my Kaweco SketchUp 5.6 for rough draft, Rotring 800+ (which has a nice twist and hide mechanism to protect the needle head and a nice stylus tip, got it from ITOYA a week ago in addition to my Rotring 800) for finer lines drawn on my Traveler's Notebook. Then I move on to SketchUp for simulation in exact measurement.
Which lead me into another project, a space to be created in a new store coming up in December, for gathering with customers having fun together, once in a while with interesting exhibitions. I can't be fully involved but according to some, this space is important to my departments, so if I don't specify it will go astray to my dismay. Then there was this Saturday afternoon having fun and deeper discussion with partner Out of Stock. What interests me is that picking people's brain trying to integrate and elevate something satisfies me immensely.
Got me into thinking: what's the most common pattern in nature? I was thinking of honeycomb hexagon when designing flexible tables, allowing multiple arrangements and collapsable for storage. Turned out there is no such thing as "the most common", there are variety of patterns in nature, spirals, fractuals, chaos, waves, etc. Thank God I have this wondering journey of discovery and linkage back to my science education, which is mostly an intellectual process I enjoy most for the work I do.
Which leads us back in time for a week when I was in Tokyo/Osaka. It was a 7 days travel to visit trade show, meet suppliers and explore places and spaces. At one point I sat down in a nice cafe in Nakazakicho (中崎町), Osaka, which is a really nice area with small shops and cafes. I thought of my extremity being in certain roles at one time but completely another roles in other times crossing disciplines, it felt almost unbearable having my personality and skills split into compartments, unable to manage it I would become a mad man getting nowhere. How to simplify such management was the thought in that very cafe.
Got me into a thought experiment: Can't just be a lighthouse in a tea cup, able to show direction but knowing just that and in a small world. Can't just be an explorer seeing so much there is no place to berth and share what I see into the future. Can't be both at the same time either. What I need to become? Need to be fluid-like waveform and become Schrödinger's cat, observe me I'm a lighthouse, observe me again I'm an explorer. Can I master this meta personality? I have a long way to go.
(Flannagan, Osaka)
Alright Osaka was fun, I wish I stopped by Kyoto instead but it was a rush decision. I thought I hadn't been there for 5 years so I wanted to see what was changed. Visited 15 stores, two most loved ones are Flannagan and Standard Bookstore. Despite unable to communicate in English, staff at Flannagan tried very hard to explain everything I asked. It has no big difference than the last time I visited, but this time I asked more. Except Meister Tools Pen, which is from Japan, all of their products are imported from Europe/USA. The most recent import was from Russia, a 350 yen 2.0 lead mechanical pencil with a sharpener cap, an attractive deal.
(Standard Bookstore)
Standard Bookstore was relaxing to read, to grab stationery and to have a nice cup of coffee. I got a Apartamento magazine and a book called True Portland. Spent more than the usual time to walk around the stationery and lifestyle product sections and of course a cup of coffee in their cafe. There is a certain rawness in it, kind of organized un-neatly yet organized and motivates a sense of discovery. It is a perfect place to spend an entire day, we need these spaces.
(Trans-Lankhe)
Oh there is another place I stumbled upon, a home/interior shop called Trans-Lankhe, close to Flannagan. I feel that this is a shop managed by Dulton, a brand I love a lot, but I'm not sure. I love their cabinets, far-sight eyeglasses, small things like wooden trays and clips as well as those cans and accessories.
(Doutor Coffee, working on Chronodex planning 5 people's schedule for the next day)
Back further before visiting Osaka, it was almost all business and meetings in Tokyo, except in small chunks of time when I was in Doutor Coffee, ITOYA and Angers.
(ITOYA, Ginza, Tokyo)
ITOYA, ITOYA! I lost a lot of blood over there, it is a family in stationery business I admire a lot. There are intentions and histories there. Yup, you can spend a full day there and it is not enough. Currently their original building is still under re-construction hopefully seeing light into opening in 2015, a temporary building is used but you still get a full 7-8 floors full of stationery, an annex close by called K.ITOYA hosts finer selections of fountain pens, art supplies and study room essentials. Be prepared to die in this heaven, I got a wooden pencase called AvanWood there, well and many other stuffs too, its a poison.
(Angers in KITTE Marunouchi, Tokyo)
Angers originates from Kyoto since 1993, it is one of the stores with stronger intentions you can tell from product selection and merchandise mix, things are right beside each other for reasons, unlike Loft and Hands which are more commercially oriented and you would have no interest to find out who's behind them (they are still far superior than many Western stationery businesses IMHO), Angers shows telltale signs in every corner. To put it simply, signage speaks character, as to what character you can perceive from the store, you just have to visit it.
Oh of course there is the Traveler's Factory in Narita Airport. This time I brought two colleagues to see it, every corner of the store speaks of details. You know all the signages there were painted by hands from the original designer, factory only products, rubber stamps, etc all guarantee a few hours of stay even though it is a tiny shop comparing to the flagship factory shop in Meguro.
Why TN is loved by so many? In addition to the flexibility for customization, the leather, the paper etc, I will tell you why: Serendipity. It's a long story by itself of where this TN movement came from, it is other long stories of how things evolved around my life with it. Simply said, I met a lot of friends from around the world because of it, you too have to step out of your zone and meet other users, it changes your perspectives and I mean it.
(mini meet-up in Tokyo with Shigeru and Rocketman, together with Suzuki and Rita)
For a while, Mr. Shigeru follows my instagram and I thought he only plays Ukulele, nothing to do with stationery or TN. Then this July I saw his feed showing Traveler's Factory Narita in construction as well as Designphil's booth construction in time lapsed video, I got curious and asked if he is involved in the same industry. Turned out he is a contractor for Designphil helping to build these things and he has been a TN user for many years. Alright, let's come out when I visit in Sep I said, then dispite the language barrier we met in Nonbei Yokocho for a drink, together with my visiting colleagues. Then Rocketman joined all of a sudden, I knew him only on Flickr liking his photos and he is actually a TN user too, he is probably uploading the most TN photos to the Flickr group and what a surprise I could finally meet him in person. Rocketman sings in a hobby band, catalogs his meals meticulously on his TN, loves photography just like me and tries to visit new places every year.
Aren't we all connected? Yes but if you are connected to people just on the net and never met any one of them, you missed a lot. There are so much more in each of us that's worth sharing and peeking.
(mini meet-up with Traveler's Notebook Korean users)
Each TN is a conversation starter. Last year I had a great time visiting Korea to join a TN user gathering and we couldn't have enough. So far, users in Korea are way more willing to show and share their TN usage than people in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This year I visited Seoul again for business but at the end of the last day my friend and business partner Mr. Shin said we should head back to his office for discussion, alright we were tired but no problem, a few more hours of hard work will pay off. Turned out it was a surprise gathering with familiar and new faces! I was so happy despite being tired. We swapped TNs to see what's happening lately to each other and how each one added personal touches to their TNs, be it customization or usage.
Who they are? Mathematics teacher in University, fashion industry mercahndiser, fountain pen fanatic with a background in theoratical physics, tour guide, fine art student etc. See the diversity and how everyone enjoys sharing? I learned a lot too.
One unexpected nice gift was from a fine art student who painted in very fine lines my avator onto a TN refill!
Earlier this year, Voloymyr from Ukraine came to Hong Kong travelling with family, we knew each other briefly on facebook only but when he said he was going to leave Hong Kong the next day, I couldn't resist to come out very late a night just to catch up chatting with him. I wondered what is happening in Ukraine, how he can spend 6 months working and then 6 months of vacation with family year after year, etc etc. Stories and life diversity again and again. Well, he didn't really go away, he left for Indonesia with family and filled up 128 pages of his TN and came back to Hong Kong for yet another brief meet up. Amazing, he is back to Ukraine now, hopefully I will meet him again.
August this year, I was in Shanghai for a brief stay to help set up our ¬ [DESKBOUND] campaign (I would love to tell you more about this but maybe later). On the last day I was carrying my luggage walking around the campaign area for a final glimpse, "Breeze in May" came and poking here and there in the TN zone, I was trying to answer her questions as much as possible in such short time. She finally became a TN user, at this moment I think she is working on her USA vacation itinerary on TN :)
I met many new users in Hong Kong too! During the ¬ [DESKBOUND] campaign in Hong Kong in early August, I brought my Kingsley machine to Times Square for a pop-up event, helping customers to emboss their TN with gold foil. A family from Singapore, a secretary, a TN couple, etc etc. We are going to have a great meet-up in Hong Kong soon I promise! How about December when there is a new space we can use?
(¬ [DESKBOUND] event in city'super, Times Square, Hong Kong)
(a sample TN I drew on the cover with gold acrylic for display)
Alright, I'm writing too long and heading nowhere. Before wrapping up, let me give you a little tip on TN.
If you have bought the brass index clip, have you ever wonder how other people are using it so that it won't fall off from the edge? I did. Here's a simple solution for you, just tape the back of the clip onto the page with masking tape, that's it. Masking tapes are easily removable and you can relocate the index clip very easily. Securing the clip using masking tape also helps to prevent excessible movement of the index clip which can easily damage the paper on the edge. Good tip eh?
Finally, back to the Stationery Landscape topic. I travel relatively more than other people, yet I feel seriously not enough coz most of my trips are on very tight business schedule, leaving me not much time to explore with people and places. But life is like that isn't it? Not enough not enough not enough, when can we start to enjoy more? Let's steal time, find cracks, take moral advantages and be explorers meeting new people and making new friends on those common landscapes, I'm sure through that, we can be lighthouses to other people once in a while.
If you have reached this far of this blog post hahahah, its time to go back to the video and enjoy that one minute fly over with me once again, over the stationery landscape of mine.
What? My Instagram follower @ditzy_klutz said he/she is up to 700pcs of masking tape collection! Talking about obsession and world record. Anybody can top that? True, you never know when to stop lusting.
And tonight I went to a beautiful music performance by Hong Kong Philharmonic in the New Central Harbourfront grassland. The final piece was a feature of firework demonstration with Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.
Heading for business trip for the next week, gotta update you what's been going on diligently.
Hong Kong is such an amazing place a lot can happen in just 2 months. For those of you who don't follow my tweets or Instagram feed, I feel obligated to blast out what happened (Colin, I'm talking to you!). Or to put it better, I want to share my colorful life with you because I know I won't have the time to go back and post tibits I wanted to describe in more details. So here you go.
Had a privilege to be invited to speak in a conference in Basel. Flown to Zurich on Swiss Air.
Before the conference, I had a few nice walk with conference attendees from different parts of the world, taking time to see and had coffee while journaling. Visited stationery and lifestyle stores like Waser, Book Binders, Seven Sisters, etc.
One afternoon was particularly pleasant with nothing to do, so I cycled to all 3 countries sharing this lovely little Basel. Between the border of France and Switzerland I had a couple of beers by the river and a nice chat with a fellow conference attendee.
After my presentation and the weather permitted, we went for the maiden flight of the newly made Cyberclean hot air balloon. I was privileged to be on that very balloon, while the rest of the conference attendees rode on the other 9 balloons. Champaign after that.
I stole half a day from the conference and met two persons I knew but never met before. My blog reader Yvette who took me to Zurich to see stationery stores and bought me a nice pen, we had lunch in a famous restaurant Zeughauskeller, she showed me her lovely Traveler's Notebook and pens in brass pen case, we shared love in stationery and photography. We talked about business and management near the end of the day as she is the head of a medium size company. Since I'm a serious Treemap user, I arranged to meet the founder of Macrofocus Treepmap, Luc, in Babu's Bakery & Coffeehouse. Interesting to see his other versions of Treemap and found that surprisingly the software's biggest clients are … I can't tell, but very interesting. Thanks Yvette and Luc, I had a great afternoon with you even though it was very brief!
Visited Museum Tinguely amazed by his work, went up to 1291 meters Weissenstein mountain top to lunch afterward.
Chased by a cow there after showing her my Traveler's Notebook, literally chased by her and being laughed at by a 10 years old kid.
Before we left Weissenstein, I had 30 minutes laying on grass breathing clean air while looking over this beautiful country.
It was quite late that day but we managed to stop by Solothurn, a beautiful little town having a lot to do with the number 11… (check out my flickr feed by clicking the photos). Fountains, churches, clock tower, cafe, etc. Too short a stay but feeling lucky.
Back to Hong Kong from Switzerland. Mid-autumn night playing with kids and lights and camera.
Worked a lot on Inkling campaign, which has a long queue of waiting list now as production speed is still slow due to their strict quality control standard.
The Instayay group is getting bigger and bigger, lots of new faces I couldn't find time to meet. Great to socialize with a very diverse group of people.
Oh I did take my Voigtlander 35mm too, stunning colors to capture in Ma Wan.
And it was the first time I saw my son so seriously taking photos with his digital camera, love that he enjoys photography as much as I do.
September was Switzerland, October was Korea. For some reasons this trip was delayed to October and I couldn't change flight schedule but to accept a midnight flight to Seoul.
Rare in Seoul but it happened to me, bed bug bite in a decent hotel, luckily they moved me to a super nice traditional Korean style room, 5 times bigger but I was not so used to sleep on the floor with thin bedding. Managed to find a lot of great stuffs to bring to customers in our shop.
First time to try Budae Jjigae (Army hotpot). A type of hotpot originated from Korean War when meat was scarce and people picked left over food from US army base. Yummy.
Met dozens of suppliers over there and found new masking tapes which quality finally catching up with Japanese MT Tapes.
Stopped by 10x10 cafe again, a must visit cafe even though the decoration is changed significantly from my last visit.
Finally visited Jetoy's very own shop, met the founder once again and had a real nice meeting and planned ahead for the coming year's collaboration.
Visited dozens of stationery and lifestyle shops, as usual. Small world, I arranged a meeting with a Korean guy I met back in Switzerland, to learn more about his business in Korea. Chose the Toycamera shop to meet. Found in that shop selling a book with dozens of my Polaroid photos inside. I agreed to let them use my photos for the book, for free, in return I asked them to send me the book but they never did! Toycamera shop owner was nice enough to ask me to sign that book and I was happy enough. And I bought the book.
Turned out there was a firework display in one of the night I stayed in Seoul, went all the way to get close to the firework and it was awesome, so many people.
Back to Hong Kong from Seoul. Kid is having more homework, I invented some ways to help him learn English spelling, turned out successful and each round I would make a small booklet for the bunch of words he needs to memorize. Eventually, I made a leather cover for those booklets. My kid supervised me to make the leather book, and he specified a pencil holder too. I named in "Spell(ing) Book". Fun.
Cycling in Cheung Chau with kids, what a lovely day. Ice cream, cycling, chit chats and of course Instant photography, this time with Chocolate Polaroid film.
Middle of October, after weeks of thinking about it, I finally took 4 hours (or 6?) to make this leather pen holder with strap for myself. I followed a design from a Japanese company called 4GATS, I admired their design a lot but I couldn't buy it anywhere in Japan in my last visit in July. Will import their products to Hong Kong, but I just had to own one created by my hand :)
More product sourcing, repeatedly, happily. Knew Jac Zagoory's key pen for a while but finally saw it in person first time. Great quality, good looking, but probably cannot arrive for this Xmas.
Couldn't join Strida gatherings, but managed to visit a bike store opening. Met a serious biker who customized his Strida with speed drive, drop bar and Megahorn.
Got my hands on the Polaroid Z340 instant digital camera! Love the look, hate the Zink prints. Launch event with media on 23rd Nov.
Lomokino launched. Got a sample but haven't tried to use it, I have low motivation to do that afraid of spending all my money in seconds.
Phew, a whole lot more happened, I guess these are just tip of the iceberg. Better follow my tweets Colin! :) BTW, finished reading the "Steve Jobs" biography and re-read "Why We Buy". In the process of reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
If I were to have my own place (gee it is almost impossible now given the high property price here in Hong Kong and I am probably too late, too unwilling to work my butts off giving my entire salary to mortgage), I would have all walls filled with bookshelves, custom made or genuine trays of the letterpress shelves, boxes and blackboards etc to build memories, concepts and ideas.
In these shelves/trays, they hold small chunks of memories though collection of objects and visuals. Each object tells a story of my adventures, places I've been to and concepts coming from my little brain. A real life Akashic Record of myself open to everybody. I don't know what it means in front of God, or if it means anything to anybody, but at least being able to see those shelves of my life in my mind already gives me the basic grasp of who I am, that's what life is about isn't it? To discover yourself. Now I accept donations :P
Yet another year has passed, I really didn't realize until I grew tired of something at work lately and counted, that it is the 8th Back To School campaign I managed. I couldn't believe it, and it is best for me to stop and let the next guy take over. To linger a bit more, I imagined next year's campaign would feature "The End Of the World BTS Catalog" hahahah, a lot of fun games, dressed up staff, in-store characters displayed…. etc. What do you care, it's the end of the world…. kind of cool. Anyway, the idea will perhaps stays with me and still looks beautiful without actualizing it :)
I strived to add new elements to every year's campaign, mostly on concepts, accurate 3D layout, analysis and games. Too bad this year there are not much new merchandise from Japan (after the quake) and things are pretty slack. But so far this is the best year ever in terms of contribution from every division.
I'm particularly happy about this year's simulation, in fact so proud I showed my son how it was done from scratch. First it was a sketch on paper, then I worked on 3D simulation on Google SketchUp accurate to the millimeters, fantastic colleagues from VMD made them real finally. My son was watching me orbiting the simulated scenes on computer, asking all sorts of questions, he wanted to go to help setting up the actual event and to watch when it first opened and customers coming in. Eventually I took him to Times Square in the middle of the event, at first he was just casually looking around, not particularly excited I guess because it was not really a back to school event for young kids. All of a sudden, he said calmly "so amazing". That's enough for me, I didn't need any award.
So let's see what will come to change and I will put some thoughts on it during my trip to Switzerland next week (yes for work). After all, my tarot amplified my thoughts about putting plans into action, inner strength and courage to take risks. Will see, will see.
This year our back to school theme will be "Meet Yourself!" in city'super and LOG-ON. I realized for a long while that we've never really geared our promotion in terms of "school supplies", but rather "Personalization, Customization and Individualism". So I decided to play down the "back to school" name a bit and "invited" 9 very distinct characters whom you will find appearing in our event area and on leaflets, to show you what they like, perhaps you will identify yourself to some of them naturally.
In this event, which is a painstakingly difficult thing to pull off involving so many parties, we will have Personalization Zone, Gadgets and Basic Stationery Zone, iPad/iPhone/Headphone Zone, Fashion/Bag Zone and Brand Zone. All in Times Square city'super for the period 12th Aug to 31st Aug (while in other stores, they are the smaller sized versions of the Times Square one and last until 1st Sep).
Our dear friends from Korea stationery industry also supported us with brand new product lines and beautiful displays. I wish we had more time and manpower to cope with their sheer volume of creativity. Brands include: Antenna Shop, 7321 Design, E2, Pony Brown, Lollipop, Indigo, Elago, Vistadesign, etc.
Chocolate Rain fans will be delighted to see a 1.7m Fatina along side with a bunch of new products such as umbrella, keychain, iPad cases, etc, thanks to Prudence and her friendly partners to make it happen again this year.
Purchase any Nike bags from us you will also get this cool notebook set for free (while stock last, about a thousand pieces). It is a nylon cover with 3 A5 sized notebook refills (ruled, squared and plain). North Face, Puma, Gregory bags will be present in the event too. Don't forget to check out our own production bags which each of the series are named after those 9 characters I mentioned above (Nicole, Nic, Mandy, Rika, Nikki, Matt, Max, Wilson, Eagle).
I'm not very organized here but you will soon see our "Meet Yourself!" leaflet coming out, feel free to pick it up and explore. There is even a matching game with very nice prizes, you just have to figure out which pair of those 9 characters are currently "in a relationship" :)
Now that CIAK notebooks are not in our stores anymore and I recall an amazing exhibition we did back in 2007, gathering artists from various countries to show off how their ideas on notebooks became reality.
Here's a video we assembled to display during the exhibition. In it featured fashion designer Prudence Mak from Chocolate Rain in Hong Kong, a design team called Gagatree in Singapore and an amazing indie band Noughts and Exes from Hong Kong.
Blake Mycoskie: Start Something That Matters I don't know why I couldn't finish this book, maybe it was the tone it was being written. Gotta get back to it someday, or not. (**)
Paco Underhill: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond Read this book 10 years ago. To read this updated copy is to refresh my memory of how things were done back then and what's changed recently. Although at the beginning it is kind of boring and you may not agree with their research methods, but later in the chapters you will find hidden wisdoms. Just follow the author's logic and see what you can learn from it. (***)
Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs Love hearing the stories all over again, some of them especially what happened in the past few years are new to me. Most importantly it is a closer portrait of Steve than all other books about him. Isaacson recorded audios during his interview with Steve, check out 60 minutes special and you will hear Steve's own voice. RIP Steve. (****)
Richard Branson: Losing My Virginity Read it like a novel coz you'll find it attractive as a story to follow through. Learn from his character through stories! (****)
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