The Pen Addict 566/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	566
Title:	A Boat on Your Desk
Release Date:	May 31st, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 566
Audio File:	Audio Episode 566
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 566
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 566. This episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I'm pretty good. I'm excited to talk about some new products that have come across my desk, or across my screen, if you will. In the past couple of weeks, some I probably should have mentioned last week, but we have so much fun stuff to talk about. Who knew we could talk about pens so many times, and still have new stuff to talk about? It's like magic.

Myke Hurley: Well, you know, these dong companies, Brad, they just keep bringing out new ones.

Brad Dowdy: Well, do they, Myke? Do they?

Myke Hurley: I really set you up there. I keep you right up.

Lamy Balloon release

Brad Dowdy: We have a discussion to have about the release of the Lamy Balloon. Okay, so long-time Pen Addict readers and listeners may recognize this name. What is the Lamy Balloon? This is the pen that many years ago, Myke, in fact, 13 years ago, that I reviewed in 2010. I reviewed the Lamy Balloon Rollerball. It's this blue, transparent blue pen, like rollerball pen. Like, this is the only way it comes in rollerball. It's not a fountain pen. It's not, you know, pencil. It's not the ballpoint. It doesn't get the full workup that Lamy normally does. So, I've always held this pen to a high standard for design. Like, I think it's a great design, right? And I raved about it. Now, at the time of the review, I was really disappointed in the refill. It has a very proprietary refill. Almost nothing else fits in there. And the refill was poor. Good refill.

Myke Hurley: I liked it. Oh, let me rephrase it. I bought one in 2018 at the Lamy store in San Francisco and really liked it. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if it changed or maybe, you know, just our taste.

Brad Dowdy: So, maybe because this pen has actually had gone through a little bit of design change, right, from when I first reviewed it. But I still, the reason why the balloon has always stuck in my head is because this is what I wanted the Lamy Vista to become, right? This is where we got on the whole hire me Lamy kick, you know, five or six years ago. It was like, you can make these translucent barrels at a low price point in the fountain pen lineup. Why don't you?

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And here they come again with a new relaunch of the balloon. You'll notice, at least, well, I noticed the one drastic change of this pen compared to my model in 2010 is the clip.

Myke Hurley: Well, they've actually redesigned the whole thing, right?

Brad Dowdy: They pretty much, the front end, like the section looks the same.

Myke Hurley: But the body is the Safari Vista body. It looks like it. The old balloon had a rounded cap, completely different clip. Yep. It was quite a different pen, I think. And I feel like now they have decided to just use that kind of tried and true design language for the balloon.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So that begs the question, Myke, when am I getting the Vista? Like, they've made the top half now, right? They've made the cap. Mm-hmm. They literally made a Vista cap or a Safari cap or an All-Star cap for this balloon. When are we going to have the full continuation of the product? And that's what I've been harping on for years. Like, I know you can do this, Lamy. Like, from 2010. Like, I love this pen so much. It's such a cool design, right? And it's like, this is like your entry-level pen. Like, I'm not asking Lamy to change the world here. But I've always been on them knowing that they can make this, right? And now they've done a few things over the past couple of years to tell me they're kind of telegraphing, like, the next move, right? They're building up. Like, they made an All-Star with a translucent yellow grip section, right? That was that, I don't know, it was one of the Asian editions. I can't remember if it was China or Japan or Hong Kong specific. But it ended up being a worldwide release. It's like an Iron Man-looking pen. So it had the yellow grip section. But it was an All-Star, which they don't usually change the grip section color. Now they've made a cap that looks to be a match to the rest of the more entry-level fountain pen lineups. The Safari, the Vista, and the All-Star.

Brad Dowdy: We might be getting there. We might be getting there, Myke. So I found this to be very interesting. So they've always kept the balloon in the lineup. It's never been that great. Although, like you say, I'd probably need to try the refill again because I didn't have a great one. So I will get one of these new ones. What I want to see from this, from anyone who orders this pen before I get it, is if this cap can be swappable into one of the pens. Yeah, can you take a put-up to Safari? How close is the manufacturing? Like, are they setting this up?

Myke Hurley: I feel like it's got to be, Brad. I feel like this is the same thing.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Because it's a machining thing, right? It's a cost of machining thing. If you can make similar products, like, that's better for your factory. Right? Like, if you can make a cap that has multiple uses, well, now we're getting this cap dialed in to maybe being used for what I want, which is a Vista or Safari in this colorway. So we might be getting there. So I want to see, I want to get one of these. I haven't bought one yet, but I will soon. And I want to see if this cap is hot swappable with your Safaris and Vistas and All Stars, things like that. So I'm sure someone will be able to test that before I do. So that is my next question. Have they started to build in a universal cap for this price point of pen? And if so, it's only going to be a matter of time before I get what I want.

Myke Hurley: I would like them to just make this for the Safari. Like, I would just like this to be...

Vista lineup and design changes

Brad Dowdy: Well, they have this whole Vista lineup, which is weird. So the Vista has always been the clear plastic one.

Myke Hurley: But they could just make like a special edition now in like translucent or like more have more translucency like that one that you mentioned, right? That we're not 100% sure of, but we know there was one. And I would just like them to play around with this now for the specials. Like, I just think it would be good. Like, you could kind of... I feel like this is like how you like pro gear it, you know? This is, you know, so you do like a translucent body and solid color cap and grip or whatever, you know? Like, if you now are doing this and you've got like the process in place to make effectively Safari parts, provided that they can be interchangeable, which I'm 90% sure they will be with no information. I would just want to see them play around with this too, because we're kind of running cycles around the same colors over and over and over again with them now for the special editions, like those Easter ones. How great would it have been if the Easter ones were just the same colors, but translucent? Right. Right? We would have been like, oh, great. They nailed it, right? This is awesome. Exactly. Because it's something fun and different, so...

Brad Dowdy: And that's been always been my thing with the Vista. The Vista either needs to be a product lineup or it needs to turn into the Lamy Safari Clear, right? Because the Vista does not mean anything except for this one pen. So you're either going to make your translucent barrels and expand the Vista lineup or you move it to Safari Translucent. And it's just this weird outlier skew of the Vista and it's existed for decades, maybe two decades. I don't know. It's definitely over a decade that the Vista's existed. And it's not that much different from the Safari, right? I mean, it's virtually identical. A couple little visual cues that are different, but that's about it, right? So the Vista, it either needs to be expanded or morphed into the Safari Translucent lineup. And this is kind of like just another thing that makes me think that we're going to get there pretty soon in the next year or two of getting a full translucent fountain pen in colors outside of the Vista. So it's exciting. I'm always shocked when the balloon comes up because it's such a weird product. Yeah. And it is so good. Like it is legitimately good, but it just doesn't get much love because it's just kind of, again, just like this weird random standalone product. And honestly, not, you know, a great refill, even though you say it's better. I'm going to, I will hold that thought. So maybe it's better now, but it's just kind of like a one-off. So maybe it's like the test, it's the parts test bed, like for the rest of this, this lineup to get me eventually what I want. So mommy's listening, Myke, I have a feeling we're going to get it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know who doesn't listen to us, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Uh, I don't, I don't know where you're going with this, but carry on.

Montegrappa's response to feedback

Brad Dowdy: Montegrappa does not listen to us. And that's a good thing, right? They should not listen to us.

Myke Hurley: Well, they do. We know that they do because they changed their mocking page and the things that we say.

Brad Dowdy: That's actually true. So we know they listen. If anyone listens, we know they listen. Yeah. I'm very wrong on this. If anyone listens to us, Montegrappa listens. Uh-huh. I put in a link to the old man in the sea, their newest, I don't know what you call this lineup. The newest, like custom luxury premier product lineup. Basically one of their artisanal pens, if you will.

Myke Hurley: It's like the new Kendall Roy edition. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's a no hold. It's their no, they get an idea and then they can do, then they have, the designers have no holds barred, right? They can do whatever they want and then they come out with these high end additions. So I want you to give me your initial thoughts on the old man in the sea.

Myke Hurley: I mean, they killed it. It's incredible. So it's like.

Brad Dowdy: It might be the best pen they've ever made.

Myke Hurley: I wouldn't go that far. Wait, don't say that. Be careful what you say, Brad, because it will show up on the marketing page. I've already forgot that. Don't say the best pen ever made because I know that they'll do that.

Brad Dowdy: Rescended. Rescended. If they want to send me one, I can be bought, Myke. If they want to send me one, I will give them a quote.

Myke Hurley: If they send you one of these and they didn't send me the Spymaster, then someone's going in the doghouse. I'll tell you that. This is a, I guess it's like a part metal, part wood, right? Like is what's going on here. So it's like silver and enamel and mahogany wood. And it is, it is a, it's based on Hemingway, right? Like a Hemingway piece. And you've got in the middle kind of like the silver section is like this imagery of a fish being caught from a boat and like the old man pulling it into the boat. But then the, the finial and the cap are mahogany. And the clip is a really awesome looking fishing rod. This, this pen is just awesome. Like it's not for me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to use this one. But I would, I will go in on record and saying this is the best wooden pen I've ever seen. I typically don't like wood on pens. I don't know why. Like they tend to have this look that I'm not a huge fan of, but I think this has been integrated really naturally and really well. And they've made some very, very smart choices in how this pen is presented. Yeah. I think it's incredible. I think they've done it again.

Brad Dowdy: Have you seen the presentation box?

Myke Hurley: Of course I've seen the presentation box. You kidding me?

Brad Dowdy: It's a boat.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's not the box. There's a box and inside it is a thing that you keep that you put the pen on and that's a boat with a swordfish at the end of it.

Presentation box and pen design

Brad Dowdy: It's a boat. It's like the, your desk holder for this pen is a literal boat where the pen rests on the tray of like on the top level of the boat along with the bottle of the ink. It's so ridiculous. They do such a good job at this stuff, right? Like this is not for us. This is never for us other than to talk about and fawn over. I thought the, how would you describe the fish on the barrel? Like it's not cut out, right? But it's shaped to where like, if you hold it up, it looks like, I don't know, it's like it kind of integrates into the background of like your, your room or something. I don't know. It looks, it looks realistic. Not, I mean, not really, but you know what I'm trying to say. I don't, I don't know the right words to use here, but it's kind of like wavy and it's not just like a lacquered over round barrel with like artwork underneath, like the lacquer. It's like all built into the barrel. It's got all kinds of shapes and curves and cutouts and stuff. Um, the clip is the fishing pole. Like it's got a reel on it. And I wonder if the reel works, like knowing, um, knowing Montegrappa, that reel probably like spins around or something like that. Um, I don't know if it does.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it does. It looks pretty set to me, but.

Brad Dowdy: So I will say this, the low end model, which we're looking at right now, the, the 5,000 euro model is infinitely better than the gold inlay model, which is 6,500 euros. Yeah. The gold doesn't work for this one. The gold does not work at all for this one. So like the, the less expensive one is just a stunning pin. I actually, I really want to see, see this pin in person. Like I have no like interest in it. I have no, like I'm not a Hemingway person. I don't need this, but I think this is one of the neater ones that they've ever made in a long line of neat pins that we rave about. Um, the boat pin tray is just sick. Like I am, it's, it's just knocking my socks off. This whole, this whole thing is good. Like this is, this is one of those Myke where I'm like the price, eh, that seems about right. You know, like these are all like a ridiculously priced.

Myke Hurley: It looks like a 5,000 euro pen.

Brad Dowdy: It looks like a 5,000 euro pen.

Myke Hurley: For what a 5,000 euro pen can be, it looks like one. Yeah. Yeah. You can argue if any pen should cost 5,000 euros, right? And I think it would be a good argument, but if there are such a things that exist, which they do, this one looks like it does.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Yeah. That's, that's kind of my point. So, I mean the, the grip section with the waves, I don't know, like little, every little detail is, is done up correctly on this pen. It's just kind of wild. And then you get a boat on your desk.

Brad Dowdy: So that's my quote for, for you Montegrappa. If you want to update, if you want to update your page, you get a boat on your desk. So there you go. Add that to your marketing. All right. Kind of staying in the sea. I did want to mention the new Novelure Horizon pens because I wanted to get your feedback on these because when they first popped up on my screen last week, I was like, huh, this is weird in like a good way. Like I felt like very confused at first. And the more I looked at them because there's, there's a unique design element that I would like to get your, your thoughts on. And that is a non, you know, not a linear design on the edge of the cap band. And I'm wondering what you think about this. So we'll, we'll have a link in the show notes to these pens, but I wanted to get like, not just a materials perspective, because that's one thing about these pens, but I thought this was a unique design element and I wanted what your thoughts were.

Myke Hurley: I think it's interesting. I, I, I mixed feelings on the material choices. I think the gray one is really cool, but the rest of them maybe don't do it for me so much. Sure. The cap band, you know, usually on a, on a cap, like the, the metal band that goes around the outside is flat on the bottom, but this one's got a kind of wavy aesthetic, which I think would be kind of interesting to demonstrate the ink window that they've put on this pen. So even when the pen is capped, you would still see the ink in the ink window in theory. I think it's interesting. I, what my question would be is like, is this just different for different sake, which I think it might be, which is fine, but I'm not like blown away by it, but maybe it would be an interesting design element for some, but I don't, it doesn't grab me particularly as something that I would therefore be interested in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So my initial reaction was hesitancy, which I think was kind of like what yours is. But the more I looked at it, the more I was like, yeah, why not? Like, like I wouldn't want all my pens to have this right. But why not?

Myke Hurley: I don't think realistically it causes a usability difference for people. No. Like I bet it was, if you were someone who for whatever reason is like, but I stand by caps on the desk. Like you could probably still do that with this, but yeah, it's an interesting design choice, but it does kind of, I don't know, like it feels, it feels a little bit like just let's just try this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And they did, it's a little bit different shape for, for them as a design. The top finial is also metal, which I actually think works with the cap band, with the metal of the cap band and it's matching color. So like there's four material colors and then there's one with rhodium trim, one with gold trim, one with rose gold trim, and one with kind of like a brownish, I don't even know what you would call that color of that trim. What do they call it? Gun metal. So it's a gun metal trim, but it kind of comes off brown in the pictures, but I think it is the material of that pin has brown in it. So it makes it a little brown, but I think it's actually gray of the gun metal. That's my, that's my favorite one. Like if I'm going to order one of these to review, I actually prefer the gun metal one, which is weird. I, you, we picked the two tamer ones for, if you can call any of these pins tame, because there's two like really bright ones that those are going to be the sellout ones, right? Like those are going to go like really, really fast. So, um, dawn and dusk are both, you know, bright, vibrant. Um, one is the rose gold, one is the standard gold trim. Um, and then you like the Aurora and then I like the twilight. So, which I think is kind of funny. So, um, yeah, I want to, to get one of these, like, it's just this. Um, it's interesting to me when I think about products, how one slight little variation for that makes me want to talk about this pin more than if it was just a standard cat band design pin, what I've even mentioned it. But it's just that one little thing that honestly, I mean, to be very clear, it doesn't make a difference, right? Like there's no, there's no like, Oh, crazy innovation type of situation here, but it's just different. It's kind of cool. So it made me talk about this pin, right? Where, you know, I may not have, if it was just, you know, the next novel or in these cool materials, Hey, great. I love those pins. So like, they're very cool. I like them. So, um, now this one, like, okay, yeah, nice. You made me like show more interest in this pin and I'll probably pick one up for review down the line. Like I'm not rushing out to get one or, you know, maybe they sell out, but I, I, I like it. Um, yeah, I like it. I'm probably going to end up with one of these and, um, and then I'll just fidget with the cap band as it, as I'm holding the cap in my hand, you know, fidgeting with the pin instead of, or trying to balance it on the desk like you were talking about. So anyway, I just wanted your, I was curious what you had to say, even though there's probably not a lot to say, I ended up saying a lot of words about a little scalloped, uh, scalloped cap band. So there you go.

Myke Hurley: I'd be intrigued to know what you think about it when you get it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'll probably do that soon. Um, probably between the Lamy Balloon and the Narwhal Horizon, I should probably just head over to penchalet.com and pick them both up, right?

Myke Hurley: Well, let me tell you all about it, Brad. Just, you can, you know, run and rush all the way over there because over at penchalet, you can get 10% off anything at any time just because you listen to this show. Go to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict. That is where you'll get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at penchalet. Penchalet have products from your favorite brands with fast and reliable customer service. They add new styles of pens every month and every couple of weeks, you'll find a whole range of new discounts over at penchalet. They also sell, you know, as well as rollables and fountain pens and ball points and pencils. They also have carrying cases and pen holders, refills, fountain pen converters, and more. You have everything available to you. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the United States. They also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. Penchalet has low prices and high quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com, that is penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and to the password penaddict to get that code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time and to find a whole host of special offers just because you listen to this show like what we're at.

Brad Dowdy: We're going to get to those special offers, Myke. This might be a little bit of an extended moment because I'm going in. So we have added the balloon to the cart. So there are three colors of the Lamy balloon. There's translucent blue, green, and pink. Which color did I put into my cart? Pink.

Brad Dowdy: That would be the obvious choice. Blue. No. Green. Exactly. Nailed it. Nailed it. The reason why I picked the green is because I have enough blue and pink stuff. You know I love blue and you know I love pink. Pink is actually just going in, just not knowing anything. Pink would be my first choice. And when I review products, I try to mix it up a little bit, not be so obvious. Like, hey, Brad's going to do the orange thing. You know, so if there was an orange one of these, I would have bought that first though. But I'm going to go with lime.

Brad Dowdy: So that is in my cart. So now we're going over to the Narwhal Horizons. Which color is the one that I like? It is called Twilight. So the one thing with Narwhal that I hope we're going to get one day is an extra fine nib choice. So they tend to do just fine, medium, and broad. There are actually stub nibs available that are on special order, which means it's probably like a pre-order thing. So I'm going to do that. We're going to do Twilight stub nib. We have added to the cart. And let's go over to our fun and amazing discounts for Pen Addict listeners. Okay.

Myke Hurley: You're building up quite a cart over there today.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's two things. Two things.

Brad Dowdy: The Stipula is nice. So Stipula has made some improvements over the last few years in their fountain pen, like the nibs and the quality, like their QC. You know, several, several years ago, people would like question the QC. Now, the ones that I've used from people that I've seen at pen shows, Stipula is one of those pens that I always pick up from people say, ooh, what is this? And a lot of times it's a Stipula. And this is a really beautiful color. It's like this tortoise shell Stipula. It's a very expensive pen, but it's at a very, very good price here. If you're into that type of design, you know, gold nib, beautiful, beautiful materials, that looks great. The Y Studio wooden notepad is something that I've always talked about. And they have that on sale here on our Panatic page. The Pelican M205 demonstrator. I mean, come on. That's like super popular. I don't know why those are still in stock. Is that like a permanent edition or limited edition? Ooh, this Panider Metropolis ballpoint. What color is this? Okay, I'm shopping here. You really are. You really, really are today. I told you this is going to take a minute. Everything's going in the clock. Ooh, there's a Schaefer Pop Star Wars gel pen, a Kylo Ren pen. What other one is this? There's a Kylo Ren. And what is this other one here? Is that like Rey maybe? Let's see. Where's the other one? Yeah, it's Rey.

Brad Dowdy: So it's Rey. Oh, that is super ugly. Sorry, Rey. Kylo's pen is better.

Brad Dowdy: The Rey pen is not doing it for me. I don't know what's happening there. We'll stick with Kylo on there. So back to this Panider Metropolis.

Myke Hurley: So you can go to penchalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link in the top of the website. Enter the password. Pen Addict for this week's special offer. To get lost in the offers. And to get the code that you need. The purple one's not available. To save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: So I was going to order this Panider Metropolis, but there's only a white barrel level. The purple one is the one I want. You've been cut off. You've been cut off. Skip that one. I'm still scrolling.

Myke Hurley: Maybe you have, but we have the rest of the show to do.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, Platinum Mixable Inks. Brad Daldy. Okay. Let's do a show. I have to check out before the end of this show. Shout out of the week, Myke. We're keeping this one in-house. Great. And, you know, which is something I rarely do. So I wanted to give a shout out to Caroline Foti, who does the Meet Your Maker series on the Pen Addict, which has become a very popular series where Caroline spends some time interviewing makers in our space. So this week or this month, we do one article a month she puts out. And this one is with Jason Miller of Jason Neal Penworks. And it's really great. You get some insight on, you know, the people behind the things that we purchase, you know, people in our community and our industry that are making cool things. And you get to hear their stories, their, you know, their starting stories and what they're up to and see some of their wonderful artwork. So we've done, you know, materials makers, pen makers, and, you know, we're going to keep going down the list here of all types of different makers in our space. So I put in a link to the Meet Your Maker tag on the Pen Addict. If you're not familiar with this series, just go click that tag and scroll through and read about each of these makers. So we had Jason, we had Renee Meeks from Scriptorium last month. And like, I don't know, we've had Greg Hardy, we've had Brad Owens. So all of these wonderful people in our community, I wanted to give Caroline a special shout out for putting this together, putting in the work to do this once a month. That's like a lot of work and it does not go unnoticed. So I wanted to give Caroline a special shout out and tell them thank you for this. It's really good.

Brad Dowdy: All right, we're going to keep it. We're going to keep it in house. Because we mentioned last week, like I had some new spoke things going on. And I said, well, let's just hold that for next week and do just like a quick check in. Like I don't have a really long, long segment planned here for like things we're working on. But I thought we'd do a quick check in because over at spoke, we have released some new colors of the Model 6 pencil, which have mostly sold out. That was always a popular, popular shape and design for us because we could do some mix and match of the colors. The Model 4s with all the different grip sections for the mechanical pencils, those have always done super well. So we have a new launch coming partially today, I think. And then either a continuation either Friday this week or late next week. So we have like a prototype shop on the spoke page. So Brian, we have a new product coming out and it's going to be called the Roadie XL. So it's going to be like our postable Roadie, but a full size barrel to fit your Pilot G2 style gel ink pens. Like we're going to ship it with the Pentel Energel Navy Blue ink. So it's going to be a longer, more traditional gel refill compatible pen. Postable as well. But up first we have, Brian wanted to experiment with like some cap manipulation. So he's done that for our prototype shop. Yeah. To see like what people think about those. So those will be up probably today or at least sometime this week on the Roadie XL model. And then next week we'll have the Roadie XL and the fun colors that we always do, right? The more traditional style, traditional colors of the product, you know, the grays and blues and oranges and all of those things. So yeah, that's what we have going on there. Over at the Pen Addict shop, I did something neat with Damien from All in the Nib. I had him do some nib grinds on my Bennu anniversary pens, which I thought was a really fun addition to that pen. So we took 30 nibs, 10 each of fine, medium and broad. And then five of those 10, I had Damien do cursive italic nibs and five I did stub nibs on them. So those have sold really well so far. So that was just kind of like a new fun addition I wanted to offer for the Bennu pen, which I thought was a really, really cool thing. And then you, Myke, you were just always cranking out new stuff over at the Cortex brand. So what you got going on?

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm constantly cranking away at things.

Sidekick notepad restock and review

Myke Hurley: But, you know, we're still shoring up the Sidekick notepad. We've done our first kind of mini restock and have a larger restock on the way. The product sold much faster than we thought it would with the initial lot. And we're now kind of settling into a more stable place with it and trying to work out how we can adapt the Sidekick notepad to do different things. Like I'm working on some different layouts that we could put in the construction of the book as it is currently. So we can make like spinoff products. And then I'm also working on some updates to existing products that, you know, I was like, oh, this will be done by the end of the year. Nope. It's probably going to be next year now. But once I get back from San Francisco, I'm going to start work on our next product, which I do actually hope and believe there is a possibility of it being available this year because it's way, way, way, way, way simpler than anything I've made so far. So we'll see about that. But that's my plan. We've always got things going on. So we've got some Mark 1s still in stock in the blue and the black. And yeah, but the Sidekick notepad is still going strong.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Love to see it. And I gave a shout out, put a link into the Gentleman Stationers review of the Sidekick. Joe did a very thorough breakdown of the notebook. He did a great job reviewing it. I tend not to review my own products or like my super close friends products like yourself. I feel a little bit too close to the products to do that. So I like it when other people like jump in and do things that we're able to share about our own stuff. You know, good or bad, like we're open to like taking like the criticism and loving like if, you know, none of that stuff matters. Right.

Myke Hurley: It's a really, you know, I think that Joe does a really good job of like understanding what the product's for and singing its praises. But he also has some criticisms. And yeah. So I'll ask you a question. Yeah. If somebody writes a review and they make a criticism, but you don't agree with it, what do you do about that?

Brad Dowdy: Nothing. I mean, you just like, so my whole design belief is that I have to have a belief in why I did the thing and in the decisions that I make. And that doesn't mean that those decisions or designs are unassailable. Right. It doesn't mean that they're for everyone, but it means that I did it for a reason and I will stand behind that reason. And if I feel like it's a very big mistake, I will admit to making that mistake and try to correct it. But if I feel like, no, it goes against the design and the reason why I did this. Yeah. I like, I'm okay with the criticism. Like the, one of the biggest criticisms we ever got was a knock product. When we made the Lanier, it was a briefcase, right? It was a thin briefcase that could hold like up to like a 15 inch, like MacBook iPad. It's a very thin product. Like people wanted a shoulder strap for that. I remember that. And I was adamant, adamant that this design would not work well with the shoulder strap. And that did not stop people from just like, kind of like getting like upset about that and saying they're not going to order it. And I'm like, that's okay. Because like, there is a reason why, right? Like our belief is that it would throw off the balance of the, of the product and it would not work like you think it's going to work with a shoulder strap. But so like, I was like, that criticism is, is valuable and it's fine. But we also designed, I believe in specific design, not general design. Like I'm not trying to solve problems for everybody, right? That's my design philosophy. I'm trying to solve specific problems. And if that specific design does not suit your use case, that's okay. And you're allowed to have like your criticisms like are totally fine because like, like, yeah, I did not, maybe I didn't design the product for you and that's okay. Like I don't want to ever design a general product, right? Yeah. I don't want to design. If you design for everybody, you design for nobody. And that's, that's just my belief.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. See, cause I think, you know, if I can use that to talk about what Joe was talking about, one of the biggest things he talks about is the price because it's an expensive product, but that is the design. Like it is expensive to make because of what we wanted it to do. Like they're just, there is not a way for me to build this product and it still makes sense for our business and price it cheaper than where it is. Like it's cause it is incredibly high quality and made by hand. Like similarly, like one of the things that Joe mentions is the idea that it's made in the UK and then it's expensive to ship back to Europe, which is like, this is another design decision in that we choose to tell people because this is not a thing that I think we would have heard at all if we just didn't talk about where it was made, which is how most products are, right? Like if we made this in China and like we didn't talk about that because it wasn't a source of pride necessarily for either of us, we would get, still get people complaining about shipping prices because shipping is always so expensive. But this idea of like, you made it here and ship it there and then ship it back. It's like things are made all over the world all the time, but it's only when you become like, cause this is a choice that we made. And so like you, and I knew like you, you open yourself up to it, right? By us proudly saying it was made in the UK and also getting made in Britain certification, I knew that it would frustrate people, but it was a source of personal pride for me. And unfortunately the logistics can't work out any different. Like we work with a company that only distributes from America, but even if they distribute it from other places, I don't know if we are at the logistical scale and focus that we could manage two sources of distribution. Like we're struggling to do stock management for the one warehouse, right? Like if we had to do it across multiple, like I just, where we are in our company right now, we couldn't do that. Right. Um, yeah, Joe is also interesting to me as well. Cause like Joe talks about like that. He thinks that this product has like, uh, an idea behind it that the show helps explain. And, and that, that is, that's puzzling to me. Cause like, this is the most simple of like compared to the journal. Like, I just think this is a very general use product, but it's always hard to see what people see in it. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think it's a general use at all. Right. I, I actually agree with more with Joe, maybe not in the direct, Hey, you need to listen to Cortex use this product. I don't think that's the case, but it's the ideas that you put out into the world, whether they're specifically related to this physical notebook product or not. The general concepts that you discuss on the show come out in your design decisions, whether they're specifically, uh, for this product or not. If that, does that make sense? Yeah. Right. Like you have a design aesthetic and you have a creative style and great as too. And those things show in the end result, whether it's a very specific reason or not.

Myke Hurley: I think I got caught up in this idea that we make a product that requires like a little bit of a manual, right? No, no, no. To use. This one doesn't, but I agree. It's like, yeah. It's also like what Jackie's saying in the chat that like, you know, this is an expensive product. And we are saying that like, this might last you for 60 days and then you're done with it. And like, that is a thing that not everyone's going to get behind. And I understand that. Right. And like, but that's the point. Like I wasn't looking, if I wanted, there were a lot of choices that we made where we knew we were going to exclude a lot of people for their own use cases, but there are already a million products that exist in every single price point forever. And we just wanted to make our one the way we wanted to make it, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So this is, even though there are different products, this is identical to what we went through with the Knock Lanier. So you make a product and you explain why you make it, right? You laid out, here's why it costs this much. And that's what it's going to be. And we understand like, you're not going to buy it because it doesn't have a shoulder strap. But here is our decision making process that we believe in making the best product for the intended use case of this product. So it's okay if you don't like that. It's okay if you don't want the shoulder, if you won't buy it because there's no shoulder strap. It's okay if this is too expensive for a notebook product. Like all of these things are okay. Because I believe as a designer, it's your job to explain that on the front end. You didn't just go in blindly and say, hey, here's our $35 notebook. You should buy it. Like there's reasons why it costs that. And there's reasons why we make the design choices that we do. And the price ends up being what the price is, right? And like, not everyone understands that. And that's okay. Like I'm totally fine with that. I take, I have learned to take criticism very well. Yeah. And like there's very good, well-meaning and intentional like points like someone like Joe makes. That's a lot more valuable than just like random drive-bys of like, well, this is stupid. It's expensive. Or this is stupid. It doesn't have a shoulder strap. Like those are meaningless, right? That does not affect me. But like, I want to hear like what other people say about like that think about these products like we do. So it's all good stuff.

Myke Hurley: It's like, I do feel like compared to the journal, say like you can look at an image of the sidekick notepad and be like, yeah, that's, that's for me. Right. Where I feel like the journal is just so much more complicated. Um, and it like requires the part on the other side. Yeah. On that note, it's like, I'm working on getting imagery now. So like I've taken a bunch of photos. I have a friend, a friend of mine, Ian, take a bunch of photos, but I kind of lucked into the thought that I could hire keyboard content creators. So I've been hiring some keyboard content creators to take psychic notepad photos.

Brad Dowdy: I saw that last one on Instagram. Was that one? Yeah, that was one. I just wanted the keyboard.

Myke Hurley: But that's the part of it though, right? So like that part of these imageries, images for me are like showing them in these like really interesting environments. And you may be drawn in by the beautiful lavender keyboard, but then you're like, what is this thing? But yeah, some of the imagery that we've got in the bank now is kind of awesome. And this also came from the idea that like eventually we want to get into more like Instagram advertising as a product thing. And because I was talking to Tom and Dan about this because they've really been going down that road a lot with Studio Neat now. And one of the things they said is like, if you want to get into this, you have to have lots and lots and lots of media. Like you have to have lots of imagery and lots of video. Like you just before you even think about doing it seriously. So I'm now working on amassing a lot of that stuff.

Business strategies and future plans

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I know Brian does. We should have like a whole business podcast one of these months. We'll do it just like a straight up business, like how we do things. We just dabble in the Instagram's ads, which is like what you're saying is probably not like the most effective use of our time. Like you got to really go after it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, I mean, I've been dabbling and am dabbling like just so I can understand it a little bit. But eventually we're going to work with like a third party agency to manage it and like really drill it in of like A, B testing this and that and like just things that I haven't got time to do. But like if anything in any of my businesses, like I always like to be the person to try it first. So I have like a basic understanding before handing it off to somebody else. So like one day there will be someone who will be managing that for us and right. Right.

Brad Dowdy: And see like the way we think about it, like again, like not we're going on a completely off the off the rails here. But like we have to think about it from an inventory perspective. Like we make X amount of pens and like we hardly need advertising to sell through. Right. Like that's a good place to be. So it's but it's balancing that and like also acquiring new customers and showing, you know, like, you know, you have to have growth too. Right. You have to bring in some new customers as well. So thinking about all those things.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, this is one of the differences between mine and your businesses of like if so we want to try and increase the amount that we sell. And if we increase the amount that we sell, it's actually relatively easy for us to produce more inventory. Right. It's not so easy for you to produce more inventory because Brian's doing it. Right. So like you have a limit of how many pens can Brian do in a day. Right. Right. Right. Where we have less of a limit like that because we're using like a factory to produce them. So like, of course, they have a limit too. But that limit is is much larger than what then like Brian's limit.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Good stuff. Well, I'm going to make some notes to maybe we'll do we'll do some some businessy podcast stuff because I always love to get into it because we have we I I like this stuff because we just don't do one thing in neither of us. Right. Like there's lots of things that we have that we're thinking about all the time. So we will we will do this maybe over the summer. I'll put that in my notes to to wrangle. Until then, I'm going to business a little bit on what I have upcoming for reviews for the pen addict. Myke, I went through a pen cleaning last week, just kind of rotating out my pens. Lots of pens that I've been using, lots of pens I had reviewed. And then I always have to, especially with fountain pens, I need to spend time with the products before I really put my thoughts down on the page. So one of the reasons why I had to do this cleaning of existing fountain pens and inks was I had some new pens that I needed to start using for preparation for new reviews. So three pens I just inked up. I wanted to talk about number one is the Waldman Titan.

Brad Dowdy: We will there will be a lot of discussion around this pen. This is a very interesting pen and it relates to like what you're talking about with like design decisions and price points, right? This is a very expensive pen. It's mid $400 for a titanium barrel steel nib pen, limited edition, but like very well made, very high quality, very enjoyable to use. Also a pen not for everybody, right? So like this is one of my favorite things in design is we don't make something for everybody. So it's a very specific pen. I inked it up with wearing all seven color ocean, which is kind of a, it's kind of, you know, like a, um, I don't want to say common blue, right? But it's got a lot of character in it. It's like a, it's a very oceany blue. Like the name is very, very representative of the color. It's got a few different blue tones in there. It dries lighter in some areas, darker in some areas. It's got a very, very good color. I'm not saying it's just like the most unique ink ever, but it's really, really pretty to use. And it's really good with the steel colored nib, steel colored of the titanium colored, I should say of the barrel and steel nib. So that one I'm going to get a lot of use out of this next one, Myke, again, uh, add this into the business conversations. How do you get Brad to review your pen when you're a new company?

Brad Dowdy: And the way you do it is you send me an email and don't give me the PR pitch. Say, Hey, we made something we think you might like, here's the link. Go check it out. If you see something you like, let me know, like, I don't need your full PR. I don't need your pitch deck. Right. Because if you have a pitch deck, I'm wondering, did you make this stuff? Like the, like, where are we, what are we actually doing here? So this company called Anhand and I, you know, maybe I'm wrong about them, but I went and just, they sent me a mail, said, Hey, we have this fountain pen and we just like to get your feedback on it. Check it out for us. And so my initial reaction is, is always skepticism. Um, so I go browse around the side. I was like, Oh, Oh, that's pretty cool. It looks like a unique design, um, of the pen. We'll talk about the pen in just a second. But I was, I was browsing through this. I just thought, Oh, they make like desk accessories and they make a few other things. They're not just making pens, um, based in the UK. And this pen is called the method pen and it's a brass barrel pen. And it's not too big. It's not too small. It's kind of just right. The Goldilocks pen, um, which is good for a brass barrel pen. And it's got a faceted cap and then a smooth, uh, barrel. It fits my hand really well. What's interesting about this pen is it has a snap cap, which you don't get a lot in metal pens. They're usually threaded. So I've been enjoying using that. I've been using that for show notes today because you can just uncap it like one handed and use it. If you want to, um, uses a Schmidt nibs and converters, which I like Schmidt nibs. So I have a medium Schmidt, uh, steel nib in here. I have this inked up mic with Van Diemen's Mandarin duck wing. Um, that's, that's an ink name. I feel, I almost feel like it's like, eh, that's probably like a bridge too far on, on the naming. Uh, again, we'll add this into the business conversation, uh, naming conventions. Like, you know, we could like, do we have to go like giraffe tail fuzz? Like for the ink, like we can, could we just go Mandarin duck?

Myke Hurley: Huh? Lemon, Lennon toolbar.

Brad Dowdy: Lennon toolbar. Lennon toolbar.

Myke Hurley: That's awesome.

Brad Dowdy: So anyway, it's a Van Diemen's inks. I like, it's kind of like a brownish red, which is generally not my color, but I like this color enough and it's kind of dark and I wanted to experiment with it and it's a really good match for this brass barrel pen. So it's been fun to play around with. I just inked it up. I'm really, I'm really digging this pen so far and I'm probably going to end up reviewing it. They were just really know what you don't ask me for a review because I will never say yes, I will review your product, but you can always send me products to get feedback and then I'll decide if I want to review them or not on my own. And that's probably what's going to end up happening here. They just wanted some feedback and I will probably review this pen because I'm very, very much enjoying it.

Myke Hurley: What is it like? I want to send you a review unit. Would you?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You'd be okay with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I say, I say, absolutely. I don't guarantee anyone reviews, but I'll be happy to look at it and give you some feedback. And if I choose to review it, I'll let you know. And if I do review it, it may not be nice. Yep. Like I say all that. Like I tell you, like I don't guarantee if I don't guarantee.

Myke Hurley: Like if you don't think it's going to review well, then don't send me it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's like a single sentence I'll say. It's like, I don't guarantee a review. And if I do review it, I don't guarantee it will be positive.

Myke Hurley: I love it. That's good.

Brad Dowdy: Here's my, here's my address. Sometimes things don't show up.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last one is a pen I picked up from Myke's Pen Fund. So Myke Green makes pens at, as a hobby. So I saw him at the Chicago Pen Show, known him for a couple of years in stream, actually in Twitch stream. He's in there a lot. And I didn't know he made pens until a few months ago. So I made sure to stop by him, his table in Chicago, picked up a couple of pens from him. So I have this material is called Wicked Wisteria. It's a really dark magenta swirly pen. And I inked it up with Pilot Orochizuku Tsutsuji, which is a really, really hot pink. So this is a very good matchy matchy type of situation here. So I'm looking forward to playing with that. Yeah. That's one I will eventually review on the blog. All three of these pens I will eventually review. But again, it's a process for me to start, start inking them up, start using them, start carrying them, start getting some ideas about how they work. Some are easier than others. Like most of these are pretty straightforward. Like no one's doing anything like crazy unique. These are more like materials and shape discussions, which are pretty, those are more straightforward reviews. You know, like with Myke's pen, you know, I'll review like, Hey, how was his machining and finish, you know, on the pen? And what is the shape like? And, you know, with the and hand pen, I was like, well, did they build like a quality like design? Like, how does it fit in the hand? And is it balanced, you know, from someone who I don't really know a lot of? And then Waldman, you know, the Waldman pen, like the idea is going to be about, Hey, they kind of stepping outside of their like silver work, because which is what they're known for and doing like a unique titanium build. So it's very cool.

Myke Hurley: Very cool. Indeed. All right. I think that's it for this time. If you want to find links to everything we discussed in this episode, go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash 566. There you can also find a link to send us in some feedback if you would like to send in your ask TPA questions or follow up for the show. But you can also go to pen addict feedback dot com to do that. Our next episode is going to be an all ask TPA episode. But if you're hearing this now, it's too late because we pre-recorded it. And I can already, Brad, I can warn you now, we're not getting to all of the stuff in the document. Neither have we gotten to all the ask TPA questions that are in the system. So eventually we'll get through, I assume, all of them, but it's always going to take time, which is good because it means we have episodes planned out into eternity at this point. If you want to find us online, there's a few places to do. To do that, go to pen addict dot com, spoke design dot com, pen addict on Mastodon, pen addict on Instagram, twitch.tv slash pen addict. That's all the Brad stuff. You can find me at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram and on Mastodon. You can also find my products at cortex brand dot com. This show is part of Relay FM. You go to relay dot FM slash shows and you can find many other podcasts there. Maybe there's something else to pique your interest in our catalog. Thank you so much to Pen Shillet for the support of this episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Bye.