I had been itching to try one of Birmingham Pen Company’s custom fountain pens — their Model-A series designs. They release a small batch of a particular color material every few weeks or months. For some reason, I was taken by the Crystalline Liquid Hot Magma ($119) acrylic color, aptly named after the Austin Powers reference.…
There have been a lot of better-quality, Chinese pens introduced into the market recently and the Kaco brand, like Pen BBS and the Moonman line, is one to put on your radar. While the Kaco Retro (approx. $11.49) is not the most innovative pen in terms of design from Kaco (more to come about their…
Review by Laura Cameron Back when the Elemental Notebooks Kickstarter launched, I was all in. I love me a good themed notebook, and I find anything geeky endearing. I was very impressed by all the thoughtful design features that Laurie & Greg had put into the notebooks. From the title page to the colored paper…
By Jessica Coles A few months ago I heard that the Esterbrook trademark had been purchased by Kenro Industries and the manufacturing of Esterbrook pens was going to restart. I had many thoughts about this, not many of them comforting. Esterbrook closed their doors for good in 1972. There was a brief attempt to revive…
Review by Tina Koyama Like many students, I could not have survived college without neon-colored highlighter markers. Since that time, I haven’t used highlighters nearly as much, but I still have occasional need for them in my planner, on receipts, in catalogs, and the like. While I’ve broadened my scope in most other stationery and…
When I was wandering through the corporate card shop. Yes, my office actually has a card shop in the building! I stumbled across the new Easy Tiger planners. There are two sizes available — this pocket sized edition (5.5×3″ for $18) as well as a larger desk-sized edition (5×7.5″ for $35). I decided to take…
Review by Tina Koyama If I had my druthers, all pens would be retractable. Since I use so many of my pens and other tools while out sketching somewhere, pens with caps are always at risk. (I once dropped a pen cap from the upper level balcony of a mall where I was sketching. The…
