The Pen Addict 414/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	414
Title:	Where Do I Even Write Things?
Release Date:	June 10th, 2020
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 414
Audio File:	Audio Episode 414
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 414
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 414. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and the Canalea Pen Company. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hey Myke, how are you? Fine and dandy, my friend, fine and dandy. I'm excited, there's a delivery on the way for me. It's going to take a little bit of time, but as a follow-up item, I guess, to start the show, Brad did in fact put a package in the mail. And it's on the way.

Brad Dowdy: I forgot, I should have put that as the number one follow-up item. Have you tracked it at all? Like, I haven't tracked it since it's moving. Has it left Miami?

Myke Hurley: I believe it has left America now, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Alright, so we'll keep an eye on that because we don't know when you'll actually get it, no matter what.

Myke Hurley: So I would say it will either be next week or definitely the week after, based on the way that things have been. Right now for me. It's like, it's less of it slower than usual, but like, it all depends on the custom stuff, really.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So like, I mark it when I do things like this, I mark them as gift, right? So it's got a low rate. It's marked as gift, which is, you know, different classification than merchandise. Hello to, welcome to Shipping Talk. Yep, Shipping Talk. And so it's technically should clear quicker, but you just don't know, right?

Shipping Update

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So basically, if it doesn't get caught in customs, I'll have it by next week. If it does, then it will be the week after. That would be my expectation. We're just having so many mail problems right now. Sure. We get a coffee, we have a coffee subscription, right? So we have coffee come to the house like pretty much every week. And we have one company that we use called Pact. They're about every seven to eight days or something like that. They'll send a new bag. And then I recently found another company called, I think, like, Gustatory. And a lot of these coffee subscription companies here in the UK, at least, they roast their own stuff, right? Right. But this other company, Gustatory, they buy beans from like, renowned European roasteries in small batches. And so it's like just as a variety thing. But the whole point of what I'm trying to say here is, we are currently expecting like five bags of coffee to arrive because they're all backed up and this keeps happening, right? Like we get none for a few weeks and then it all arrives. So and then we're good for a little while longer. So I guess any day now, our mailbox is going to just be rammed to the gills with coffee beans.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's how like, I didn't have that bad of an experience. I actually had a great experience with my bung box pen, the Fujiyama Blue, but it got all the way here to Atlanta. And was scheduled for a delivery day on Tuesday, and then didn't show up. It's like, you know, check this, check the tracking and it's like, okay, scheduled today by the end of the day, and it didn't show. So you go and look the next day, it's like, oh, yeah, we're delayed. And, you know, that was, there was heavy protests that day in Atlanta, you know, rightfully so.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I was like, you know, it just, you know, there was just extenuating circumstances. And like the whole world is an extenuating circumstance right now. So shipping is just taking a while. But I have more shipping to talk about today.

Myke Hurley: So just quickly, you don't have the Fujiyama Blue yet. It's still on the way?

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no, it's here. Oh. It came after the show last week. So I've had it almost a week now. It's literally clipped to my shirt pocket. Oh, it's fantastic. Good. Like it's exactly what I want in a limited edition sailor type of pen, right? It's a unique colorway. It's like a blue translucent barrel. The blue is, the barrel is more translucent than I noticed in pictures, which I like, I prefer. And then it's got solid light blue finials. And of course, the wonderful rod in Mount Fuji in the top cap. And it's, the metal section's great. It has the ink tells more on the nib. It comes with a medium fine nib. And I inked it up with Sailor Sky High and I've been using it ever since. So like, I adore it. Like this is, this is why I try not to buy all the things. So when there's one that really jumps, I can, I can go for it. And this one is, I'm happy I did.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And then you don't feel so bad, right? Because you're not spending lots of money very frequently. You're spending lots of money way less.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You're still spending lots of money. You're just spreading it out more. Spread that out. If something comes out tomorrow, I'll go, wow, that pin is perfect for me, but I just got this one and I don't need that one. Right. So, you know, and then you end up with too many pins and then you just have to sell them off anyway. And, you know, it's a, it's a whole, it's a whole cycle. We'll talk about, we need to have a whole show on consumption and consumerism one day. Even though there's, there's no definitive way to have that conversation. Right. So, yeah, it's, you know, I try to, I try to manage it, but, you know, I spend a lot of money on pins and stationery. There's, there's no two ways about it. It's my, it's my escape. It's my hobby. It's my job. It's my love. And that's where my, my extra funds go to.

Brad Dowdy: And I like Matsujuyama Blue.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Very nice. You were saying about shipping then. I cut you off. Yeah. That's probably good. You have a good update?

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'm dreading. Okay. Something, Myke. Okay. Not in a bad way, in a good way.

Myke Hurley: Do you dread something in a good way? Is that possible? I don't think it is. No. I think you said something and realized you shouldn't say it that way. And now you're trying to like, eject a sea out of it. But it's too late.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'm seeing the light of what the Kickstarter fulfillment is going to be for the, the retro 51 pin. And I'm going, wow, that's a lot of pins I'm going to have to ship. And the reason these thoughts are in my head is because the pins are done. The pins are done. I can't believe it. I can't either. I kind of can. I kind of can. I don't know. It's like.

Myke Hurley: I just mean, there's some other stuff we've done. Of course, there's a different reasons.

Kickstarter Fulfillment Speed

Brad Dowdy: But it's so fast. This was really fast. Really fast. It's like, I'm not ready to ship, you know, 800 and whatever the number of pins is. But they are at retro 51. They are sending the final 50% of the bill invoice to me today. It will be paid. Those pins will be shipping to me probably next week or the week after.

Myke Hurley: Very nice.

Brad Dowdy: They come pretty fast. It's going to be the UPS guy or however they're going to send these is not going to be thrilled with this delivery. Because it'll be nine boxes of 100 pins each. That'll be taller than me by a good margin. And it's a lot of pins. Like that's the part that's intimidating me. It's like this is a big number. But the good thing is that it's all kind of the same type of shipping. So this is a long way of saying we're getting pretty close to be able to fulfill this Kickstarter for the product, for the pin and the poster. Along with the pins, Anna sent me yesterday or two days ago the first pass of the poster. So the way the poster is working is we're getting a color layer on the bottom with like digital printing. So a lot of the color will be on there. And then the posters are getting a second pass through the letterpress machine for the remainder of the logos. So it's going to have a good tactile feel. It's going to look really neat. So all of this is coming together at the same time. Which means I'll say in about a month I'll be ready to ship these. I'm guessing. You know, I don't know exactly. Right? There's going to be a lot of pre-packing. Like we've got to get tubes and we've got to get sleeves for the posters. Like there's going to be a lot of manual labor involved. But I bet by July we're going to be shipping this, Myke. Which surprises me.

Myke Hurley: That is just fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I feel good about it. I'm ready to see the pins. Even though I know what they look like already. I've never had a Retro 51 that wasn't exactly correct from the prototype. So I know they're going to be great. I'm looking forward to getting them. And I'm looking forward to getting them all in everyone's hands. I think everyone's going to be very happy with this. And we definitely appreciate the support for this campaign. And it's not done yet. We just don't know what the rest of the campaign is going to be at this time. But it's going to be something.

Myke Hurley: Man. Yeah. I'm pleased that we're getting this part done so fast. Like that feels good to me. Agreed. And then we can work out what the rest is going to be. Right? Like we just really don't know yet. Yeah. It gives us some runway. Yeah. I mean also it's just like I was just naturally expecting that there was going to be some kind of delays to the manufacturer of the pens. Right? Because everything is delayed or the shipping is wild. So again, pen addict listeners always find out this information first. Like I'm finally, I believe, got all of the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many issues worked out with the most recent run of the theme system journal. And they're on a boat right now. Because to put them on a plane, it was going to cost three times as much as it did last time, even though we have two thirds of the order size. Because there just aren't a lot of planes leaving China. So they're on a boat. And that means many weeks of shipping as opposed to a day or two. So, you know, it's just like I was expecting that we would have some kind of delay because it just feels like no matter where things are being made right now, things are moving more slowly for obvious reasons. So I'm very excited to know that we're going to be going to be having them. And then the only delay is just caused by Brad, really.

Brad Dowdy: Right. This is a single threaded shipping process for eight. What was the final number? Like 828, 828 individual orders handled by me. So, yeah, once I start shipping, I will not end shipping for a while.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know, so we'll have some conversations. So, yes. Artisanal pen packing and shipping.

Myke Hurley: Everybody can know that the man that they love so dearly, which is you, has handled, has Brad handled every single package. Yep. You know? Yep. I do wish that I was in a position to be able to help you. Like, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I thought about, like, what if I flew Anna here for like a weekend and we just did all this stuff and then like recorded it and did something stupid. But no, that wouldn't work. It'll be fine. But it's the best part about this is I can batch labels because so many orders are similar. It's just the physical packing of all this stuff. Oh, yeah. I've done it. I've done this a million times. And it always goes better than I anticipate. So, just the overall takeaway is the Retro 51 portion of this campaign went completely best case scenario from beginning to end. And so, we're going to get the pens early and we'll be able to do it all early, strip everything early instead of, you know, we're looking at July instead of, you know, September or later.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And then we still have a couple of months to go to work out something.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Something. Yep. But I'm really pleased about that. Something, something, pen show, something.

Myke Hurley: Really pleased about that. All right. Let's take our first break and thank the Canalea Pen Company for the support of this week's episode. Canalea Pen Co. Make wonderful pens inspired by stunning images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge your spirit, connect you with nature. That's what Hawaii is all about. It's what makes it such a special place. And they do such an incredible job of transporting that feeling, that spirit, that design to the products that they make. They're beautiful and the execution of every single Canalea pen is just outstanding. This is where for me and for Brad, this company truly shines. Every pen is handmade in a process that means that no two pens will ever look alike, which I think is such a special thing to know that the pen that you're buying is your pen. Nobody else has one that looks like it. And every single nib is tuned before it ships to customers by Hugh himself to make sure that it will be perfect for you when you receive it. Canalea have a wide variety of styles of material and shapes of pen, and they're all fantastic. You're not going to find a better collection, like just one single collection. You go to their page, look at their products. I believe that that is like the best single collection of pens that you can buy today. Like you will find something, multiple things that you're going to love. Both me and Brad own multiple Canalea pens at this point. I believe the one I'm going to talk about right now has found its way into Brad's permanent collection. And every new release is full of tons of excitement. I want to remind you of their latest, which is the Kona Cherry, inspired by the world-renowned Kona coffee bean. It has the beans themselves that hold the coffee. We talked about coffee earlier. They're actually a rich red color. This has been encapsulated in the design. But it's not just a red pen. It features so much depth and complexity with lots of transparency in the body as well. It really brings that whole look to life. Canalea pens feature Joao's number six nibs, and you can buy steel or 18-karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They also offer rose gold too, which is a personal favorite of mine, from extra fine to 1.1mm stub across their nib line. And they also ship every pen in a beautifully packaged keepsake box. You can check out their range of pens right now at canaleapenco.com. That's K-A-N-I-L-E-A-P-E-N-C-O.com. And right now, participate in the Choose Your Aloha celebration for the Kona Cherry Pen. All of the models of the Kona Cherry are now available on a three-to-four-week wait from purchase to delivery. Canalea usually have a 12-to-16-week wait, so this is much better. And Canalea Pen Co. are going to continue donating a portion of the profits to the Food Basket, which is Hawaii's Islands Food Bank, and the West Hawaii Community Health Center. So go to canaleapenco.com and choose your aloha today. Our thanks to Canalea Pen Co. for their support of this week's episode of The Pen Addict and RelayFM.

Canalea Pen Company Praise

Brad Dowdy: So here's the highest praise I can give the Canalea Pen Co. And this really goes for any pen in my collection. So we all get to the point where, in my case, I get about 10 pens inked up, and that starts to be too many, right? I have five or six inked up pens is my good place. So you start to get up to that 10 or 12 number, and I look at all the pens that I have inked up and say, okay, I haven't been using this one in a while. Should I ink it up? Or I want to, you know, there's another pen I want to ink up. Do I want to replace this one? So I just did this, I don't know, about a week or two ago. I was like, I've been using this Canalea Kona Cherry for a while, and I should rotate it out and use something else. So, and along with like, you know, three or four other pens that I wanted to clean out. And you pick up that pen, and like, I unscrewed the cap, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is filled with the orange ink, you know, the Robert Oster fire on fire that I make, and it's just like this good combination, and I'm writing with it, you know. It's like, I'm saying goodbye for now, because we're going to clean it out and store it away. And then I was like, nope, I just put the cap back on it and put it back in the case. Like, that's, like, nope, we're just going to keep it for now. So that's how that, that's how that works. And that's how I know, like, I have a good pen on my hands when, like, that's, when I, my intent is to rotate it out and use other pens, and then I actually don't. And that, the Kona Cherry's fallen into that category for me recently. It's kind of funny. All right, Myke, I am very interested on this next topic, because I'm very, let's go, I'm a novice at this next topic, and it's really, it's pen addict adjacent topic. It's digital planners. And we're only talking about this because of a screenshot you sent me of the Sumkin digital planner. We're going to, I'll elaborate on Sumkin and all this stuff, but I want to know what you sent me and why you sent me that and why you found it so amazing.

Myke Hurley: So yesterday, I think we're eating lunch and Adina turns to me and she's like, oh, I like the look of this Sumkin digital planner.

Myke Hurley: But, like, I'm not sure, like, if I would want to use it or it might be too complex for me to get into. We'll get into what that means in a little bit. So I, but I noticed something on the page and, like, I just had to say, like, can you just give me your phone a second? Because I saw some advertising copy that I kind of couldn't believe. So this is on their main page right now. It's not actually linked anywhere. So I can't link it for prosperity. So I'm actually going to include a screenshot of what I'm talking about in the show notes. And so they are making a digital planner, which ideally works best with an iPad and an Apple pencil. So in their hype for this, they have a picture of the Dita Rams transistor radio. Then they have an iPod next to it. And that's what caught my eye. I was like, are they saying this works on an iPod? So I read it and it says, copy says, we're in good company. 1960s. Dita Rams designs the T3 transistor radio for Braun. 2000s. Johnny Ive designs the iPod for Apple. 2020s. Theodore Soomkin designs the digital one task weekly planner for Soomkin. Get over yourself, Soomkin. Jeez. Get over yourselves. Oh, come on. You've changed the world, Soomkin. Congratulations.

Brad Dowdy: Come on. This is something I would totally write for Knock, right? Like, we, it's like, you know, some comment about the Lamy 2000 and the Rotring 600 and the Knock Brasstown, blah, blah.

Myke Hurley: Like, if they are being serious, which I really hope that they're not, like, this is so egregious.

Brad Dowdy: There's no way there. There's no way they're being serious. I don't know, Brad. I really don't know. It's got to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, right?

Myke Hurley: I genuinely hope so. Like, but like, there's nothing else about this page suggests that they're making any jokes.

Brad Dowdy: I agree. I agree. But you can't read that and not think it's kind of egregious and hilarious. So, yeah, I, there's, there has to be some tongue-in-cheek with that.

Myke Hurley: But anyway, this is an interesting product for a variety of reasons. One of them, okay, so there's two things that, that, that interest me the most about this. One, that Soomkin is a paper planning, planner company, right? They build their company around offering paper products. And a really dang good one at the, in my opinion. Yeah, fantastic. Right? Like, I have bought multiple Soomkin products as gifts because they look so good. They're designed so nicely. Not to Adita Ram's level, but, you know, nice. And because frankly, the thing, no, I'm not going to get into it. Like, I can't, I can't do this all day. So, you know, it's, it, it's interesting that they've made this decision. But the other thing that is interesting to me is the price points and the multiple price points that they have. So there are four products you can buy. There is the trial version, which is a weekly planner. The weekly planner basic version. Then the tailored version. And then the tailored plus. And it starts from one euro to 55 euro to 200 euro to 500 euro. And I'm a little bit confused about the price points.

Brad Dowdy: So there's a lot to be confused.

Myke Hurley: I just want to say, Brad, the, the, that copy about the Dieter Ram's and Johnny Ive. It's also in the product descriptions for these notebooks. So they believe, they believe it.

Brad Dowdy: Right? They're in. They're in. So this is not the first paper company to make digital products. Right? Moleskine is very famous for this. They do not have this type of thing, but they create their own apps, which are just really, really good. We're very well respected among the digital community. And there are digital companies that will make calendars like this. Digital calendars that you download and use in various apps. Let's just say, you know, on an iPad, even though they're, you know, can probably be used on many, many tablets and platforms and styles, I'm assuming. So I have more questions and answers about this in that I'm wondering how this works, period. So I went and bought the, the one euro trial. Right? We'll get, we'll get back to the price points because that's one of the prime topics I want to cover. So I bought the one euro trial last night. When Myke, Myke sent me this, I was just crying, laughing at Myke, Myke losing his mind over this. Then I was like, well, I want to try this product just to see what it is. And I'll take the, the one euro and buy the, buy the week. And the kicker is, which is not very clear. It's only on like one of the project pages. Like this is primarily designed to use with GoodNotes, which is an iOS and Mac app, a very, very good and popular one. So people who, you know, other digital companies who build types of calendar apps, journal apps, to-do list apps will make files that you can import into GoodNotes and use within them. Am I saying that somewhat accurately, Myke?

Myke Hurley: There are lots of apps. So GoodNotes is one. Notability is another one that I like. Honestly, like you could use this in, in Apple Notes. You could put it in and just draw on it with the, the, the pencil stuff that's in Apple Notes. Like there are lots of different applications on iOS that this will work with. I'm sure it will work with many applications or Windows if you have a Surface product with the pen. And, but they have chosen one where they know it works with this one. They haven't tested it widely.

Brad Dowdy: But at its core, it's a PDF file.

Myke Hurley: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: And you can open that PDF file and essentially write on it, right? Like you're, you're made to use like your Apple Pencil, for example. Open this file, go to the date and then write your notes on there. Okay. So that's, that's the basic idea here. And the, I guess here's my biggest question. And it's just like a usability question. There's guidelines on these pages. And we're going to talk specifically about the pages contained within in just a second. But there's guidelines, but there's no restrictions on where you write. Is that correct? So let's say you have a monthly calendar in front of you and you see dates one through 30 in blocks. It's just like you would see a typical calendar. So I could go up to, you know, June 1st and write podcast with Myke. Correct. Right. And I, but there's nothing, there's no restrictions to how I write in that block. Is, is that the best way to put it? Right. It's not like individual lines. It's like a block, even though there might be dots or grids or lines to guide you, air quotes. There's no true guides for your pencil. There's not like a field, I guess is the way I'm working. It's just like if it was pen and paper. It's a flat file you're writing on top of. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like, you know, like nothing stopping you on a paper notebook either. Right. Right. Right. But like people, you know, some people I think would consider it differently if it's digital. They think, oh, like this is a digital product. It's not. It's basically just a digital piece of paper. And your Apple Pencil is a digital writing implement. So everything that you would do if you had pen and paper, you would do here too. So if you took your pen and you put it in the bottom right corner and drew a line up to the top left corner, you would draw a line across the entire page. Yes. Right.

Digital vs Analog Product Confusion

Brad Dowdy: So that's the guidance I was looking for.

Myke Hurley: It has a lot of sections, this notebook. And if you were thinking it was a digital product, you would think, oh, I'll just tap the section and go to the place. It doesn't work like that. The sections are merely to just indicate to you visually where you are. Right. So like when Idina saw this, she was like, why don't they just make an app? Right. Because then all of that stuff will work. Right. So like if they made an app version of this, you would tap on the meal planner pages and it would take you to the meal planner. Right. In theory. But like I personally wouldn't want them to make an app because I know that Zoom King, because they're a company, they don't do this. They would not make as good an experience, honestly, as it would be using it in an app like GoodNotes. But you have to keep your mental model on the idea that this is exactly the same as if it was pen and paper. You do not get digital features from the PDF itself. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So that's the mental crossover challenge that I have. Right. I want this to be, let's say, interactive. Yes. Somehow. You want it to take advantage of the fact that it's on a computer. Right. Yeah. But it's literally a background that I will now write on top of. Yes. A piece of paper. So let's talk about the background. So in my, I got the week, which it seems like it has more content in it than the week. It's a two month. In the week. Yeah. It's like a two month trial.

Myke Hurley: I think that the product is called One Task Weekly Planner. Like it's, that's the name of the product. So it's a weekly planner, but they give you when you buy the one euro, a two month span. Now, you know, because I would love to see them do a different thing. But you sent me some screenshots of the one that you have. They gave you May, June, which is kind of pointless now. Yeah. Halfway through June. But like, you know, it's like they would have to be cutting up and chopping the thing. It costs a euro. The point is that you try it before going in for the 55 euro version.

Brad Dowdy: We're going to get to that. Yeah. But there are several different calendar options. There are some tracker options, habit trackers and different things. Things you like to see in a planner, right? Like, you know, you have your particular things you like in a calendar. Or I have my particular things I like in a calendar. And then you get to what to me is the core of any calendar is your weekly, right? Either your daily or your weekly. However, you like those layouts. Me, I like one week per page and those weeks have different blocks in it. Do you see the problem I'm seeing with this page?

Myke Hurley: Over 50% of the daily entry is taken up by the number.

Brad Dowdy: I think it's two thirds. It's wild. With the day and the date. There is one third of the block left to write your notes in. Yeah. I would like to propose. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Myke Hurley: The middle ground that they decided not to go for. I know why they've done this, right?

Brad Dowdy: Well, yeah, because so they can have those quotes.

Myke Hurley: Well, when I look at the daily page, right? I don't even know what they call it. But like the journal itself, right? It isn't like the actual weekly planner portion. And you've got like the large number. And you're supposed to, I guess, write things in there every day, whatever you'd write. They've put the large numbers on there because it is very visually appealing. Right? Oh, it looks awesome. It looks awesome. Now, if they would have just made that a very light version of the colors, you could write over it. But the colors are too dark. So all you can use is the dotted stuff underneath. Like, it's not efficient in any stretch of the imagination. And then you end up back in the problem that we're in before of like, if this was a printed product, you would be annoyed about the fact that they're taking up so much space, right? On the page. Because it's a digital product, you get that idea in your mind where you're like, oh, maybe like I can do something about this. But you can't because it's just like paper. Right? Right. Because if it was digital, you could imagine, oh, I will just tap this and I'll get a bigger field to write in. And it's just going to show me a condensed version. But like, that's not what this product is. So I think that there is a very definite to me form over function here, which I would just like to point out is the exact opposite of the iPod. Because the iPod was very functional. It was beautiful, but it was very functional. And one could argue as well, the same being for the T3 transistor radio thing. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I'll argue against their analog planners, which I found to be extremely efficiently designed. Yes. And why I love them so much. This was the planner, if you recall, that I fell in love with. And then they decided to make my format in 2020. And that's when I got into the William Hanna because it had the format that I liked. So, yeah, I definitely think this is form over function, which leads us into the price point.

Brad Dowdy: I get it. Like, I don't want to crush this product whatsoever. Like, I like what they're trying to do.

Myke Hurley: And I appreciate that they are attempting to adapt, right? Like, this product, I would assume, exists because they're having other issues in their business, I would expect. Sure. And look, if me and Brad make planner product, well, I'm more than you. Like, you make notebooks, but I make a planner, right? So, like, I understand the desire to want to have a product because you can't get your shipping right. But, you know, like, people have asked for digital versions of the theme system. But it's not the product that I want to make for reasons like this because I just don't believe in the trade-offs. And if you want a digital product, you could probably just use, like, a digital notebook. Like, I don't think that I can offer a product which is good enough as a digital product. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. What I think we're at is I think we've written down the recipe, but we haven't given it enough time in the oven yet.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Right? Like, they have some good ideas here. But I think the execution was built around marketing over functionality, like you were saying earlier. Mm-hmm. Right? It's super good looking, right? It pulls your – it makes you go look at it and say, wow, this is cool. Then you open it up and it's like, where do I even write things?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's too many sections. I believe that they've tried to do too many things. So they have a homepage, which is hilarious, self-care journal, key date slash gift list, meal planner, workout log, habit tracker stickers, sun keen book. And then the actual daily and monthly pages that they have, like a monthly calendar and then the daily calendar that they have. Yeah. It's – in my opinion, it's not focused enough. Mm-hmm. And when I see these planners that have these million sections in them, I get overwhelmed. I get daunted because I feel like it's too much that you're asking me to do. And then I feel like, how much should I be filling in every day? Am I doing enough of this? Like I've found that those products to be too much for me. So I – it's the reason why I went ahead and made my own layout, which turned into a product that I like because it's more simple and flexible. And I'm really not – I mean, I can – there's no point in me – I'm not trying to sell the theme system to you here because you can't buy it right now. Like it's merely just talking about like where I come from with this and I just think that there's way too much going on in this product to make it something that I would want to use because there would be too much stuff that I wasted but I spent 55 euro on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a big barrier to entry. So let's talk about these price points real quick. So I think the 55 euro is your individual annual planner. Okay. And you would get the full month of what I'm seeing in the trial, the full year for what I'm seeing for the month in the trial. And then the two other, I guess, price points, I think that's like – is that like – I'm reading it more as like, hey, this is the corporate version, right? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So the 200 and the 500 euro versions. For the 200 version, you can get colors and your own brand put on it. I don't really know why because like are they then thinking that you would give it out to your entire company and then if that's the case, 200 euro isn't enough money? I don't really understand that. Yes. The 500 euro version also includes custom layout options that you could choose. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I think some of it comes with a physical planner too, like a paper planner. I don't think this thing is fleshed out yet. I think this is like an alpha type of thing that they're putting out there to me. Like they have all these – like a bunch of the notes on the product descriptions page are like coming soon things. Like it's a big ask.

Myke Hurley: But like that tells me more about the idea that this is a company that is attempting to adapt to the current geopolitical place that they're in, right? So they're trying to adapt their business to be like, okay, well, if we can't – I don't know if they're having shipping problems, but if they conceive of that or they're like, all right, we've had this idea. We think we can make more money than we're currently making, which could be a good thing right now. Then go for it. But I think that this product, I believe, requires more thought in it.

Brad Dowdy: So let's wrap this up on a little bit of disclosure. I'm talking to Fyodor Sumkin in the background as of this morning because when I ordered my trial, the file did not show. And the page was getting an error. And then I retried it this morning and I got the same error. So I sent them an email saying, hey, I can't get the file. And then the file magically appeared before they replied. I don't think – I think it was just like a coincidence. I don't think that they pushed anything. So I got the file and then Fyodor started emailing me.

Brad Dowdy: And in the end, like we were just going back and forth. I'm like, yeah, I'm trying to figure out this calendar. You know, I like how it looks and we're going to talk about it. I told him we're going to talk about it on the podcast today. And he sent me the full version of this calendar, like the unlocked, like the 55 euro version right before the show. So I haven't had time to look into it. But like I think a lot of pen addicts would have a tough time like figuring out how to efficiently use this. But I could see like more digital, like, you know, iPad for everything type of people maybe getting into things like this, which other people also make. So anyway, I'm talking to Fyodor in the background. And mostly we're going to be talking about maybe making some paper planners in the future, but not a digital one.

Myke Hurley: I'm sorry if I've torpedoed your business deals. Oh, no, no. With my deep to Rams opinions.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no, I agree with the opinions. I just think it's funny. It's just like all of a sudden we started this conversation. It's like, hey, I couldn't get the file. Can you help me out? And then the file showed up. And then all of a sudden we're on an email chain, which is cool because I want to talk about the paper stuff because it's so good. Sumkin paper is fantastic. I just didn't use it this year because they didn't have my format. So there you have it. I wanted to bring this. I put this topic in not because of the screenshot you sent me, but because I wanted to pick your brain because this is not a realm that I dabble in at all. Like how to use the iPad for planners and tasks. Like I get it for notes and, you know, work type of stuff. But for a setup like this, I was very confused. So I appreciate you humoring me with your insight on this. And I think it's like an even bigger topic we could explore. I just don't know the questions to ask right now because it feels so foreign to me.

Myke Hurley: For me, it's just like this is what my pens and my paper are for. Like the digital tools don't work for me in this regard when I'm just drawing on a PDF. I would want it to be actually taking advantage more of what the digital platform can do for me as opposed to trying to replicate the pen and paper experience in a digital way. Because I just think that that is it's not really the best of any world.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's perfectly said. All right. I got a bunch more new products I want to talk about. You know, every now and then we get kind of a rash of things or I get a backlog of things I want to talk about. Myke, and the latest from Tactile Turn is the Side Click. So it's a sort of bolt action idea of a pen. And if you pull this up in the link in the show notes, these are actually just going on sale today. This is a coincidence. Will sent me these pens a couple weeks ago knowing that he was going to launch them soon. And he asked me, you know, if I wanted to review them. I said, of course, I want to review them and send me one to give away, which he did. So I'll be doing all of that soon. It just happens to be that by the time you listen to this podcast, these pens should be launched on Tactile Turn. But what this is, Myke, is he designed this button mechanism. And it cracks me up here. Listen real quick. That's pretty solid, right? I think you could hear that. So that was me retracting the tip of the pen. So you click it down like that. And then you unclick it with the button on the side. It's a cool mechanism. And that's difficult engineering for a pen to get that to work correctly. Like, and he goes through. Will does a great job of getting into the weeds on this post. We'll link into the show notes if you're interested in this style of pen. The funniest part is he mentioned his idea came from a pen called the Mitsubishi Boxee. Which I think a lot of people might be familiar with. I'm familiar with it. I've reviewed it on the blog before. It's essentially the entry-level ballpoint for uni Mitsubishi. It's like a $1 or less pen or the pen you buy, you know, in dozens for your office. It's like a cool barrel, poor writing ballpoint pen. Like, exactly what you'd expect from an office cabinet. But it has this really unique mechanism where you click in the knock on the top. And then you retract it by hitting this button on the side. So Will's taken that idea, turned it into a tactile turn style pen, and it came out great. So I'm going to review the titanium. There's three different sizes. I'm going to review the titanium short. And then I'm going to give away a copper standard, which is the full size. So the full size one fits like the G2 and the Pilot Juice refills, those longer refills. And the shorter ones fit the Parker style refills. So I think it's really good. I love what Will does. He has really stepped up his game over the last few years. I'm a fan. And just, you know, keep an eye out on these pens if this is something you're looking for. And then I'll be giving away, I'll probably do the giveaway next week for the copper one. So stay tuned for that. But I just really like the explanation and details that Will went into on the creation of this pen. It's pretty cool.

Brand Evolution and Adaptation

Myke Hurley: This is a funny thing to me. Because it's an idea of how companies evolve and the way that they're branded. Like this pen doesn't turn. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Right? Well, there is a turn in the nose cone to get the refill out. But yes, I get you.

Myke Hurley: Right. But like the idea of tactile turn, I think, probably came from the bolt action. Right? Maybe. Yep. Tactile, it is still very much so. So it's still got 50% of it in there. But I like that. But the bigger point that I want to make with this is that I like that they are not sticking too much to the idea of what tactile turn makes. And they've had a good idea for a product that they want to execute on. So they've moved ahead with that. And so now it's like tactile press or whatever, you know. But like this is an evolution of a business, right? Like they go through different things and make different products. And this is an example of that.

Brad Dowdy: So the chat room would like to make a counterpoint to your turn, Myke. All of the pens are turned on a lathe.

Myke Hurley: Is that the expectation of where the name came from?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So all of these pens, when they're machined, they're turned. So how's that? That's something to consider, I think.

Myke Hurley: But what I'm asking is like, is that why it's called tactile turn? I guess we'll come out to ourselves. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: We'll get Will. We need to have Will on the show. We'll have Will on the show one of these years. Okay. You see how I dated it there, Myke, to protect us?

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Go check out the tactile turn. And yeah, I'm going to go with lathe turn, Myke. Oh, yeah? I think Will is safe in the naming convention of his company.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So let's talk about our good friends at Squarespace. And then I want to brag about something like super, super simple.

Myke Hurley: Make your next move with Squarespace. They will let you easily create a website for your next idea or project. You can grab a unique domain name, take advantage of award-winning templates, and so much more. No matter what type of site you want to make, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that will let you do it. There's nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They have got you covered, and they have all of the functionality that you're looking for. Blog functionality, portfolio functionality, store functionality. There's so many templates that you can choose from to help you kind of get started. And then you can drag and drop in the functionality that you need. And it's all super customizable. They have really great font options. They make recommendations of font pairings that work well together, which I really like. And I just love that no matter what type of website I want to make, they have the tools for me. So I just put together a website a few days ago where I wanted a blog part, which I did, like just a text field, and then a form that people could fill out. And it's like, oh, yeah, Squarespace can do all of that. And then they can also connect with my Google Sheets account. So every time somebody fills out that form, it just goes into a Google Sheet because I don't want to receive those by email. But you can do whatever you want, and they have those integrations. I really love the flexibility of Squarespace. It just makes it easy because then I can build what I want without having to know how to do it from scratch, which is important for me because that will slow me down when I have ideas. Squarespace have 24-7 customer support as well. So if you need any help or if the person that you're suggesting set up a Squarespace website needs any help, they have a team right there to help them. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can get a free trial with no credit card required but going to squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. Once again, that is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

Brad Dowdy: This is one of the silliest stances that I have in the stationary world in that how important I think the Sailor Mano Inc. lineup is. Like, I think it's a very silly talking point, but to me, it's one of those minutiae things that I really dig into and am so happy that this ink exists because following Sailor's path in ink creation since I started the penaddict and getting into fountain pens like a decade ago has been to, it's been an exercise in the weird, right? So Sailor made probably the best stock inks you could buy in the Sailor Gentle Ink lineup. They were fairly priced. They were like $18 a bottle and they were 50 milliliter bottles. The colors were spectacular and the performance was great. And they would release new colors, you know, once a year, give us eight new colors and kind of retire out these other colors. And that's fine. But they always kept that price point in that size. And then something happened along the way about two years ago where they retired that lineup, came back with a completely new lineup that added like 50% to the price and shrunk the bottle size to like 30 milliliters. These are raw numbers. I don't have the exact details, but like it's easy to see that they like went straight from a base ink lineup to a premium ink lineup and remove the base ink lineup. I was like, what is happening here? This doesn't make sense. It's like, how can I support Sailor's ink lineups when they're doing this? And this is their main ink lineups, right? I'm not counting in all their store brands that they do. I'm not counting the Sailor ink studio series that they do. Those are all specialty. I'm talking about main retail inks. And I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, this is not what this is not why I love Sailor inks. What is going on here? And then last year, out of the blue, when they have all of these weird, weirdly priced, very expensive per milliliter inks, they come out with a lineup called Sailor Manio. And the minute I saw it, I was like, wow, these are going to be like crazy expensive because they went back to 50 milliliter bottles. And I'm sure it's going to be outrageously priced. And they're not. They're like $20. It's like back to the Sailor gentle ink lineup. And I did like a happy dance around my house, right? Because these inks are so good. Like this stuff matters to me. This is like why we have the Pen Addict podcast. This doesn't matter to anybody. But as someone who's constantly said Sailor is like my number one ink, like they were not for a while because the price didn't match the value that you got. And the Manio inks were super well received as they should have been. They are really good quality, really unique colors, really great performance, really great price, really good value. And they're going to keep it going. So there's a round two of Sailor Manio inks is hitting in August. And this just makes me happy for complete stationary nerd reasons that Sailor wants to have a main retail ink lineup on top of having all the specialty stuff that they do. So I'm very happy that these inks exist. Thank you, Sailor, for hopefully you realize the error of your ways because you left a big hole in the market a couple of years ago with all the shenanigans you were going through with trying to figure out how to make and sell these inks to your customers. And the Manio is it. It's the ticket. They're fantastic. And I can recommend them wholeheartedly. So the only thing that caught me a little bit by surprise, I didn't realize with the first round of eight inks of Manio. So they're coming out with another eight this this year that they're calling these overseas exclusive inks. What do you think that means?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: I guess like everywhere but Japan. Like I'm guessing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I guess that doesn't make I don't know why exactly they would do that.

Brad Dowdy: But right. It's like it's a retail release, right? This is not special limited or anything. It's a retail release. But everywhere but Japan. That's how I read that, which I don't care. Like that's that's fine. But I it's a little bit interesting. And I don't know. Is that in response to the feedback they got at their pricing fiasco from a couple years ago? I don't know. But I found that wording to be interesting. Not that I know what it means. So it's pretty, pretty interesting. So anyway, new Sailor Manio inks. There's going to be a bright green one. There's it's we don't have great pictures yet. This is from the the link in the show notes will be from Sailor North America's Instagram page. But there's going to be some cool colors. And I highly recommend these inks. They're just they're fantastic. I use them all the time.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. As excited as you were to hear me talk about Sailor Manio inks. I know you are on the edge. You're on the edge of your seat to hear me talk about the new Blackwing volume three, the Ravi Shankar pencil. Right. So excited. You've preordered this, right?

Myke Hurley: Of course.

Sailor Manio Inks Availability

Brad Dowdy: So I don't talk about the limited edition stuff as much as we used to, like religiously. It was like every release, every field notes release, every retro release, every Blackwing release. This one's a stunner. I just wanted to point this out because wow, is it good looking. And it's music based. I mean, Ravi Shankar, if you haven't heard the name or the music of Ravi Shankar, you would maybe know him by his affiliation with George Harrison of the Beatles, whom George learned to play the sitar from Ravi Shankar. And Ravi lived until like his 90s. Like he played music from when he was young to when he was very old. He's like a Hall of Fame level creator. And he's just amazing. And the way they made this pencil, I think it's one of the best looking pencils. Like I'm not going to order it. I'm like, I'm trying to be good. Like I don't need another dozen pencils. But this one's pretty hard not to order just by the way they created the design and the story around the pencil is right up my alley. So I just wanted to point this out for you, Myke, not being a pencil guy. They even did some music releases with these and printed some vinyl with these. Oh, that's really good looking. It's a really like exceptional release from Blackwing. And I just think the design is really of the pencil. If you just took out the story completely and just had the pencil, it would be like a knockout. But then to have the story on top of it, I think it's pretty cool. So I just wanted to point that out as one of the most recent releases in the limited edition area of our stationary world. Well, this one came out sometime this week yesterday or something like that. But very cool. I'm not going to buy it. I might eat my words on that one. This one, I might need to see that one on my desk eventually.

Myke Hurley: I think it looks great.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it does. It does. But I know you're not the pencil guy. Yeah. It's fair. There's nothing wrong with that. I will not dog you for not liking wooden pencils. Good. I will dog you about other things. That's fine. I got to save my ammo. All right. So last new product, Myke. And I want your opinion on this, even though this is not totally your thing, but it's more understandable than a pencil. It's the Pilot Vanishing Point 2020 limited edition. So every year Pilot releases one limited edition. Last year was the turquoise. I forget the name of it, but you know which one I'm talking about, like the turquoise swirly one. This one's called Black Lynx. It's an all black vanishing point with a guilloche finish or a guilloche pattern on the majority of the barrel. What are your thoughts on this pen before I get into it?

Myke Hurley: I feel like I've seen this pen before.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you have. Okay, good.

Brad Dowdy: So it's a combination of the standard black mat, right? So the very first vanishing point, my first gold nib fountain pen was the Pilot Vanishing Point black mat, which they still manufacture today. It's probably one of their single most popular sellers, best sellers. It's an all black barrel with full black trim and a black nib unit. So it's completely blacked out. And then in 2016, the limited edition version that year was a guilloche barrel with silver trim. So you had the guilloche pattern, even though it was a shinier pattern, the new one, the black Lynx one looks more of a little bit matte finish. The guilloche in 2016 had silver trim. So silver clip, silver belly band, silver nose cone, silver nib. And I bought that one. I ended up selling it because I didn't end up using it. And it was great looking, right? It was a very popular, cool design. This, the 2020 one is a combination of that guilloche barrel and the black mat furniture and to make it just a full black stealth with a pattern on it, basically. Um, uh, it kind of, um, looks like the black carbon S like it, it relates to a lot in the vanishing points history, a lot of design cues and in vanishing points history. So it's obviously going to sell out like anything that's all black is going to sell out. But this I wanted to point out is what we're seeing with this simplicity in style versus last year's turquoise is what we talked about. I don't know in an episode last year about how the design of pilots of annual vanishing point limited edition alternates between the office, the pilots office in France and the pilots pilots office in the U S. So this is the French version. And so if you take every other year, Myke, so last year, uh, so this year is the black links two years ago, 2018 is the cross lines. A lot of people call it the Burberry pin. Um, you, if you saw it, you would realize what it is. It's an all black, it's a black barrel with white lines kind of crisscrossing over it. The 2016 was the guilloche as, uh, the chat room would like me to say. Um, so you can sell that's the theme like the France office is definitely hitting this, uh, black base theme. And then pilot USA goes completely opposite. Like last year was the turquoise. And then they've done those various, like the crimson sunrise and the, and the twilight, all these wild gradient colors and really bright colors. So I'm glad there's an alternating because I don't know that I'd want the France to do it every year. They're fine, but I like the bright colors and the vanishing points, um, much more than I like the dark ones, even though this, I think this one looks awesome. Um, again, I like, I'm not going to buy this one. I don't need this one. I like my orange vanishing points better than this one. Like if I bought this one, I wouldn't use it. So it wouldn't be smart for me to buy it, even though it's like a limited edition thing, but this will sell out immediately. Don't you think?

Myke Hurley: Well, yeah, because they all do, but I don't, for me personally, I don't see it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, cross lines did not sell out immediately.

Brad Dowdy: That was the worst one that has been made in probably a decade. And worse is relative, right? Worse is relative. It's completely fine and good looking. It's just not special enough to be a limited edition. I feel this one's borderline. If I'm using saying special enough to be at a limited edition, it will a hundred percent sell out for quickly.

Myke Hurley: Looking at the cross lines on again. Oh yeah. That one was just ugly though.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like I called it the Burberry.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I, I, I was thinking of something different. I wasn't remembering. Like it was black with the white lines. When you said Burberry, I started thinking about Burberry pattern and then got lost in the idea of how I think I would kind of like that pen. But the, the thing about the cross lines when I think is that it took a very strong design position that some people would be turned off by. Like, I don't like it. But the, the, this new one, the, what is it? Just black links. Yeah. It's, it's way more subtle, which I think would therefore appeal to more people. But for me personally, it's super boring and I wouldn't like it.

Brad Dowdy: So these, these last three releases by, uh, the, the office in France seem like mainline releases to me, not like limited edition releases. Yes. The 2016 Guillaume, the 2018 cross lines and the 2020 black links. I could see all of those in the standard lineup, even at a higher price point than, you know, your basic, your basic color, you know, the next, like a next price point. Just main release. They don't feel like limited edition-y enough for me, but that's just, that's personal preference and taste, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Like I said, this one will a hundred percent sell out on like the first week or two of being available because you, you can't, you can't not sell all black pens. Like they just fly off the shelf.

Myke Hurley: People love their black pens, I guess. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Is that, is that a wrap for today? Should we hit some Ask TPA? What are you, what are you feeling, Myke? I think that might be a wrap for today. I think that might be a wrap. We have a few Ask TPA, but not a huge amount. There's some really interesting questions. So I think we'll just tease those for next week. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And we need to ask people to send them in. So you can send in tweets with the hashtag Ask TPA. If you have any questions you'd like to hear us ask on the show, you can send them by email to Brad at hello at penaddict.fm. No. Dot com. Dot com. Ah. I'm so used to dot fms as my. Yeah, it's a disease. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't go that far. Mm-hmm. But yeah, sure. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com. He streams live on Twitch every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can also find Brad on Twitter. He is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And penaddict on Instagram. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much to the Canalea Pen Company and Squarespace for supporting the show. And also to all of our RelayFM members. Thank you so much for your continued support of the Penaddict and RelayFM as well. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.