Editing The Pen Addict 726/transcript (section)

== Lamy Safari ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Last one is not a new release, but a new review I did because we talked about this product recently. I think a lot of people are very interested in the dominant industry, Kino stationary stuff. Yeah. Um, because there's one, it's interesting to see a company like dominant industry who's known for their ink products basically. And then ink accessories, right? Notebooks for, you know, ink washes and coloring different, all kinds of ink related items to make a fountain pen. So they made, this is the second one they've done. Um, which I love that the second one is called zero zero one, but you know, whatever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, well the first one was number 14. Yeah. True.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' True. True.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah. Okay. You do you, but this is when I was talking about Lamy before, like, just tell me a little bit about the story. This is a very storytelling, uh, pen, but it's, it's, I was about to say it's unique. I don't think it is unique. I think this is a style of pen we're seeing in the Instagram stationary world. And I'm not using that like pejoratively. I think this is a very visually appealing, you know, give me all the things with the pen. Like the pen is like very colorful, very well designed. It has a lot going. Every part of the pen has detail, right? The clip is overly detailed. The finials are overly detailed and it all works, right? This is normally not my style, but it kind of is at the same time because I like the cute, fun, pretty stuff too. This one gets right up to the edge for me. And the more I use it, the more I enjoy it because the actual writing experience is good. Um, it feels and is shaped like a Pelican, um, M2 or M4 series, right? The smaller size Pelicans, either the steel or the gold nib. This is a steel nib pen. The nib is excellent. Like one of my favorite out of the box steel nib experiences. It's, I got an extra fine steel nib. What's a little bit unique about this is it doesn't have a ton of tipping on there. And the tipping it does is, is, you know, managed very, very well. It's very consistent, extra fine, sharp line. And I really, really love the nib. No clue who makes the nib. It reminds me a little bit of like, uh, the Novelure nibs and just the style and the feel of the steel and the shape, like a stamped steel. Um, but it's great overall. Like I love everything about this pen. Is it going to be like, you know, my go-to or one of my favorites? Probably not, but what they've executed here is really good. They do tell a story, Myke. Like now I'm going to, um, you know, contradict what I was saying before about storytelling. Like give me a story. Um, this one's just out of thin air, right? Their story starts at Hotel Kino, a secluded retreat perched in the mountains of a far away peaceful island. Each release is created with a hotel visit in mind through each key number assigned to a pen. It's like, okay, it's like, it's too high concept. I'm never going to think about any of that. It's too high concept. Right? Like I got the key. I love vintage motel key chain, key chain shape. You know, the, the rounded diamond shape. I think that's one of the greatest designs ever made is the vintage hotel key chain. I'm literally never going to consider this storytelling once more in my entire life. Right. Right. But they did build this product this way from a marketing and Instagramable perspective. Right. And, and it crushes it. It's just, it's everything you want to see on like an Instagram marketing campaign. The good news is the pen is good. Right. So like, like I said, this one gets to the edge of everything I don't want, but they executed a good pen and it is very enjoyable to look at. It's enjoyable to hold. It's enjoyable to use. I shockingly like this pen a lot. It's not going to be, it's never going to make my top 10 pens, Myke, but shout out dominant. They, they did a good job. They did a, I credit where credit's due. So I'm very pleased there. I have no negatives about this, right? You either like the style or you don't, but like as a product, as a functional product, it's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's great. So you referenced that you've thought that the first one, the number 14 was, was not like was too much that I actually prefer the visuals of that one. Even though they both look great, but I, the number 14 to me is, is nicer for my taste than the number one. Yeah. But I agree. Like the, having a concept is fine. This is too much concept. Like there's just too much concept with no grounding in reality. Right. So I think it's, it's a bit, it's a bit much like you can do everything they're doing, but you don't need to tell so much story. Like why, what, what, why are we in like in a hotel on an island close to a secluded town? You know what I mean? Like we don't, we don't need three things, you know? We can just have one of them. Like we don't need all of that. It's too much detail. Yeah. It's too much detail with no accompanying story. Right. It's not like they wrote like a manga or something, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Yeah. They did. There's not like a complete world build around here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're just like, you just got to buy into this. It's like, why? Like, why would I even buy into it? But anyway, as you say, none of that matters if the product's good though. And the product's good. Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what I want to see next is 014 and 001 released within like a month or two of each other, like really quickly. Okay. And they're the exact same pen except different colors, right? If they keep doing this and it's just color after color after color, it's going to die quickly. So like what other pen type or fountain pen style are they going to make? Because if the next one's purple and then the next one's orange and then the next one's green, it's like at some point like, you know, business frog wouldn't be happy. Like line go down, right? Line is not going to go up unless the, you know, next year we have some type of complimentary type of pen or product with this. So you can't just keep making the same color every time. That's this heavily like story told, right? Like I'm good with one. And then if they do something different, I'd be interested in trying that. But like, I don't need the purple one next, right? No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm just, I'm trying to look up more on Kino stationary now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's, it, it just really, it just appeared. It's like poof. Yeah. Right. And Dominant has like the design ability to do something cool like this, right? Their ink bottles have always been wonderful. And then they added in ink sampling accessories like the coloring books or the swatch cards or glass tools to help you with your ink. So they're very visually based and they make very, very good inks. So this was like, this was like a high risk thing for them and they did really, really well. Yeah. But it totally surprised me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They didn't even seem to have like a web presence for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I tried to find the link on the Dominant industry page for this and it's not there. So I, I was actually going to write a note in here that it doesn't exist in Dominant's page. So are they going to try to like standalone Kino as a sub brand? Yes. I don't think they, I don't, you think they will? I don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, I don't know.