Editing The Pen Addict 548/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 548
| title           = Emergency Cufflinks
| date            = January 25th, 2023
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/548 Episode 548]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_548.mp3 Audio Episode 548]
| length          = 68
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 548, and today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. What's up, Myke? Pow, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Wow. How we doing today? I'm tired, so I'm a bit strung out this week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, clearly I'm not, because I'm doing like laser noises. You're like popping off all over the shop. I'm ready to pop off on this podcast today. This podcast is loaded with stuff I want to talk about. Like, we got Lamy News, we got Montegrappa Weirdness, we got Ink Voting, we got Pilot Doing Good Things and Silly Things, we have The Weirdest Pen That Has Crossed My Desk in a While. We got all the things this week, Myke. So, let's start it out with one of our favourite topics here, the Lamy All-Star. And we can't mention the Lamy All-Star without mentioning the Lamy Safari. So, there is a long-running battle, battleground between bloggers, myself versus Anna at the Well-Appointed Desk. I'm Team Lamy Safari. She is Team Lamy All-Star. And we fight every year over who has the best special edition. So, every year, Lamy will do a broad, these are broad releases, right? There's obviously limited editions, like we just talked about last week, you know, Myke's Pokemon edition, right? This is their broad, worldwide, singular release for the Safari and for the All-Star. They do this every year. And most of the time, I'm very biased towards the Safari. And most of the time, Safari wins the design competition, right? It's got the coolest colors or the coolest designs. And while we haven't seen the Safari release for 2023 yet, they did release the All-Star 2023, Petrol and Lilac. I think Safari's up against it this year, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, I just, I'm personally happy for our All-Star rivals and friends that they finally get to understand how good the Petrol is because we got this as a Safari, I don't know, like five years ago. So, like, I'm just happy that they finally get to join us on that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit slow. I mean, and they weren't necessarily original right here. They didn't come up with any original concepts. They took, yeah, yeah, yeah. They did existing, you know, existing colors that the Safari already dominated in the past, right? Like, the Safari has crushed these colors in the past and released inks to go along with them. Like you said, the All-Star finally caught up to them. But, you know, I'm not going to lie.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 2017, Brad, was when the Petrol Safari. Is it really? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Welcome, All-Star. Welcome. Five years later or six years later, welcome. Welcome to the chat, All-Star. But, I mean, they're going to do great, right?



== Petrol Safari and Ink Preferences ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' The Petrol is one of my favorite colors. The ink is so good, too. Like, the Petrol ink is, it's top-notch. That's a good blue-black, Brad. That's my blue-black that I own and love.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a great ink. And right now, according to retailers, there is no ink available to order. That doesn't mean it's coming or not coming. But right now, these pens are released or are going to be released, like, this week, I think, the All-Stars. But there is no matching ink, and I'm going to, yet. Like, we just don't know. Like, we don't know. There's no definitive answer one way or the other. But if it's not available right now to go on sale in conjunction with the pens, I would think it's not going to happen. But I wouldn't put it past Lamy to just do something later, right? And they've reused ink colors before. They're obviously reusing this model, this model color this time. So could there be ink? Maybe. If they're not launching it in conjunction with, I kind of think it's not going to happen, though. But I would love it if there were ink because Petrol is a great ink, as you mentioned. And this metal or aluminum All-Star is lilac, not dark lilac. And dark lilac was the famous ink that they released back in the day when they did these for the Safari lineup. Well, we're going to keep mentioning that this is kind of a do-over colorway.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I look forward to the original Safari one that they'll come out with and that All-Star fans can expect in 2029.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So usually these announcements, a lot of times we get to do them at the same time. So I don't know where the Safari announcement is, but I would imagine it's coming in the next month or so. They get these out in the beginning of the year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's going to be so good, Brad, that they need to get some space.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, you saw last year's, and you know that's not true. I don't know. You know Safari can catch some L's. Like, I'm a realist Safari lover, Myke. I'm a realist. Like, I call it how I see it. And, like, sometimes they lose. It's just more times than not they win. And I think they're in for a challenge this year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Strawberry and cream?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was strawberries and cream, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that wasn't good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That was a little weak in the design department on that one. But then again, we are doing rehash colors in the All-Star. So what do you expect?

'''Myke Hurley:''' 2021 was a banger, though. The actual Safari colors, like the orange and green. I bought both of those. That was a banger, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was one of the best. That was probably been the best in, oh gosh, probably a decade.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would like to make a request to one of our many wonderful pen blogging listeners. Someone should make a gallery of all of the previous releases as far back as they can go for both Safari and All-Star. I think that would be good. Just so you can see it going back through time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'm sure there's probably some kind of resource out there. I used to follow back in the Flickr heydays. There was an account that did that and had all the limited editions on all the pages. But I haven't looked for anything like that. I bet we could find something pretty quickly. Some kind of...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Google wasn't helping me just now.



== Lamy Special Edition Releases ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. We can find it. So, yeah. It's looking like a good year for the Lamy Special Edition releases, at least on the All-Star side. So now we'll wait and see what Team Safari does and hopefully things stand up to this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Should we have some type of Montegrappa ranking where the chaos...

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the best. Everyone, this is the last episode of the Pen Addict. We found the perfect pen. We did it. It's over. The perfect pen has been found. There is no longer any need to continue. We have found the pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love this so much. So what I was going to say is, can we beat... Can Montegrappa's weird pens beat the chaos pen, Myke? So the chaos pen has long been a favorite of the Pen Addict podcast and Myke and myself as just outrageous design in pen form, right? And Montegrappa seems to do that as well as anybody and maybe better than anybody. Like, I might just go ahead and say it. Right. Maybe the last three.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Batman, Tootin' Kar-Moon, and now this one. Like, I'm all in, baby. If I had this kind of money, I would have bought all of them.



== Montegrappa 007 Spy Master Duo ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So what we have now is the 007 Spy Master Duo. Why don't you lead this? Because you're pretty hyped about this. I definitely have some...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to give you three quotes from the Montegrappa website. Machined from gray stainless steel, rifling on the upper barrel and cap segments invoke the iconic 007 gun barrel title sequence. So, like, the main body of the pen is, like, is just kind of like a black kind of material. I don't even know how to describe it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's, like, carbon fiber-y looking. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, it's more of a yeoshe type of pattern. Uh-huh. Than, like, a carbon fiber. It's more like a yeoshe type.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The cap and the, like, the back section, they've got that kind of, like, spiral effect. Like, with the, you know, like, as the kind of the sights, the camera sights or whatever, you know, the rifling, as they call it. Because you're looking through the gun, right? It's like in the James Bond, when that sound that I was doing, when he's walking down, he turns and shoots at you, at the camera. Like, that is if the camera is inside the barrel of a gun, right? Right. It's got that kind of, like, spiraling effect that goes around. They've evoked that in the cap and in the end finial. And I'll say, like, just as, as far as Montegrappa pens go, this is the most pen-looking one of them that we've seen, right? Like, it just looks like a classy pen. Like, it's not, like, covered in bandages, right? You know what I mean? Like, it's just, like...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Batman was at least reasonable. But, like, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But even then, like, the snakes on the chaos. This pen looked like a tactical EDC pen, right? It did. Like, this just looks like a nice pen that I think you could get away with and people wouldn't really bat an eyelid to. But that is the point, my friends. That's the point. Because it has two special tricks up its sleeve. It has a forced barrel segment concealing a set of cufflinks that can be extracted and locked back into place according to need. Each is emblazoned with the 007 logo on them. Now, you may think to yourself, why would they put cufflinks in a pen? Now, I've got two reasons for this. One, because then you get to be like, look at my fun gadget. I have cufflinks in a pen. The other is, the bananas filling system that they have created for this pen means that they don't actually have cartridges or a converter. You put ink inside of bullets!

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, you have to use red ink, right? Like, it's gotta be red ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I guess so. They use like a kind of orangey ink in the product imagery, right? Yeah. The ink goes in bullets. Listen, there's a special reloading pipette which delivers ink into high-capacity ink capsules made of brass in the shape of bullets that you load into the pen. This is the greatest thing ever made. You get like this extra tube, right, that you pour ink into. You put these bullets into this tube and push it down. It like squirts ink inside of them, I guess under high pressure to get like to completely fill it up. And you'll maybe get through half a day of writing because these things are tiny. But then you load the bullet into the pen. You're a spy now. And you can't take this pen on a plane. Don't even think about it. Don't take this pen through any scanners of any kind because you'll never be able to explain it to people. It comes in an incredible attache case with two inks in the case and a little passport and everything. This is the greatest pen ever made by anyone ever. Like Montegrappa, what do I have to do if you just give one to me? Because I'm not going to give you 5,000 pounds, right? Because this is too much money.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But you just tell me what you need. We should have started there. 5,000 pounds. Myke's excitement is not underselling anything about this pen. It's incredible. It's unbelievable. And Montegrappa does this over and over and over again. And I just don't get it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This one feels next level to me, though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, legit. Like, a lot of the time, it's like, oh, this is really nicely made. And you're just paying a high price for it. But this seems, like, legitimately complicated to produce as a thing and to get it to work. Let alone the research and development. Like, have you ever seen this kind of filling system before?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, sort of. This is basically like a traveling inkwell system. For those who don't see or aren't seeing the pictures right now, I can describe it. It's like a vial, right? It's, Visconti is sold like a traveling inkwell. And you essentially would normally take, not a bullet, you would take your converter. Or you would take your piston filling fountain pen and remove the nib and basically attach this vial pressure fill. Like, almost like a pump system. And put it into and refill your pen that way. But it's a lot of times, it's a traveling ink vial that you can just attach a converter to. Or a vacuum filling pen and suck up the ink from the travel. So, what they've done is essentially make a cartridge filling version of a traveling ink vial. And wherein the cartridge is a literal bullet with a brass bullet with 007 on the side.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They got 007 on them. They made a brass. And, like, you screw the bullet, like, the back of the bullet into the grip section of the pen. It's so clever. It's so clever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that is pretty smart. The cufflinks thing, you can miss me with that. Like, that's ridiculous. But, I mean, this is, it's supposed to be ridiculous, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, but here's the thing. Here's why I like it, right? It's stupid, but here's why I like it. You're sitting down, you're talking to someone, you're telling them about your pen. You're like, oh, this is my James Bond pen, right? And then you're like, oh, of course it has, like, secret cufflinks hidden in it. Because it's, like, such a James Bond-y thing. Oh, no, it's perfect. And those cufflinks should emit some kind of, like, knockout gas or something. You know, like, that's what, in James Bond's world, that's what they're doing. Or, like, it would be, like, a homing device. I'm sure it probably started with hiding something in there, right? So, it started with, like, oh, we have this space, what can we put in there? What if we make it look like some little tracker or a laser or, you know, make it James Bond-y? And then it kind of ended up with, let's actually make it something that's, like, usable. And so, they're like, well, people that will buy this pen for 5,000 euros, they probably wear cufflinks. Like, every day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, let me poo-poo two design elements. One is the external cufflink. If you're actually using the cufflinks, you have an open back pen that ruins the design, right? Because that is literally the infenial. The external cufflink is the infenial. So, if I have cufflinks and I'm using the pen, my pen now looks stupid, right? Yep. Second-

'''Myke Hurley:''' But to be real, Brad, no one's wearing those cufflinks, right? Like, I agree with you, but no one is like- However, what I will say, I have been in a situation where I needed cufflinks and forgot them. So, if I have my pen, I'm good, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Of course. Of course. Second aspect, again, for anyone who's buying this pen, they would not care. This is the ugliest nib design they've made on any of their special edition pens. It's awful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's not great. It's just says it's a big number 60 with 007. I just think it should have just been 007. Like, I know they're doing it for the 60th anniversary thing, but the nib should have just been 007. Like, that's all it should have been.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Or it should have been the rifling. Like, that swirl, that type of design would have been killer on a nib and would look great. This is an overcooked nib for an overcooked pen, which, like, that part's cool. Like, I love everything about this. Like, I'm excited that you're excited. And Montegrappa, like, I don't know. Like, I want to sit in these design meetings because it's just got to be outrageous. Bonus points for the Sean Connery choice imagery. That was the one kind of bond feature. Okay. Okay. But it's a great, great image that they use. You know, it's got the tux on at the baccarat table. I'm sure it's got cufflinks. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That shows everything you need to, you know, to get across.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' To understand this pen. Yeah. Like, it's fitting with the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that is an image from Dr. No as well, which makes the most sense.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's fantastic. Unbelievable. Like, well done, Montegrappa. Unbelievable. Like, we joke about this stuff because, like, we just find it fascinating. And what fascinates me the most about Montegrappa is the 10 out of 10 execution every time on this stuff. I don't get it. Like, it's impressive. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like, like it or love it, they execute flawlessly. Right? Like, you don't have to like the designs. Right. But, like, this is next level. Like, I cannot believe the amount of work that goes into something they only make 380 of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, let me ask you, and we'll wrap it on this. So, say just you own this pen. Uh-huh. And are you carrying it in the attache case and then taking that to, like, your office desk, dropping down the attache case on the desk, flipping. I mean, you got to flip the little clasps, right? It'd be hard not to, right? That little thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, you know what I would do, though, Brad? I would get, like, a really thin, like, piece of wood to put in there or something and then make it a writing desk afterwards. Or maybe you could close it and it's your writing desk. Yeah, close it and let it be your writing desk.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is the passport a notebook? Yes. I didn't see that. Okay. It is. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the greatest product ever made.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? Okay. I mean, I'm not going to say no. I'm not going to disagree with you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will say it's so sad that they make a rollable version of this because it, like, removes all of the good stuff, right? Right. But, you know, like, why? But, you know, you do you. I know why they do it. Like, I know why they do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, like, it's just sad. All right. Let's rein it in a little bit here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What's the point? Is it worth continuing? It doesn't get better than this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is this the end of the show? I think it might have to be. This is the end of the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. We might need to keep going. So maybe one day you can afford this to get this for yourself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a good point. Give it, like, 10 years and I can buy it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? That's going to take a while. That's going to take a while, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want it so bad, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, my gosh. What a day. I knew this was going to be a good show. So let's switch gears completely and talk about Diamine and their willingness.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' In a Montegrappa sense, to work with the community to make cool things. So Montegrappa does it maybe on a different level than a lot of companies do. And they're able to do that. And they're known for that. Diamine kind of turned this, not turned a corner, but they kind of jumped into the more social media type aspects of their products. For, like, an historic, classic brand to take on, say, like, a Reddit board under their wing and work with the fountain pen for Reddit to create inks, like, year after year is really impressive to me. From a company being, like, thinking about that type of thing to work with, hey, this group of, like, passionate users to make these products. So they started several years ago with the slash rfountainpens subreddit to vote on inks. And this year's inks came up. We talked about these not too long ago. But the final versions are in. And I just wanted to put the links in the show notes because I think the colors this year are going to be my favorite colors that they've done in a while. So there's actually going to make two inks. The first one is called Sailor's Warning. So it's a bright red, orange, pink, shimmer, purple, blue shimmer. It's just a wild shimmer ink and a great color. Like, I am really, really anxious to get a hold of this. Like, this is such an interesting ink. Such a really cool color. And I voted in the final selection. There was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven Sailor's Warning samples that were sent out. And Nick Stewart at nickstewart.inc had samples of all these, did some great testings. And so you would take these numbers, pick out your favorites, and do kind of like a stack ranking, one through seven.



== Diamine Ink and Community Engagement ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' And whichever one, you know, won that Reddit vote is what Diamine's going to make. And I just think that's really cool of them to participate in something like this. I voted for the one that eventually won on Sailor's Warning. So I have very good taste along with everyone else who chose. Chose number 37 was the sample that ended up winning. And the second one is Celadon Cat, which is a gray, blue, green. It's really hard to describe ink because even the samples are pretty varying. One could be very blue, one could be very brown, one could be very green. I voted for the third favorite. So this one was number 41, I believe. And that was my third favorite of the ink. So it's really, really neat to have this Diamine participation and see it continue to grow every year. And people get excited about this and think about this all year. Like, when did we do the original, gosh, it was probably like in the fall when it was time to, hey, let's give Diamine our ideas to eventually get down to these colors, right? They have that level of participation. Diamine's not saying, here's five inks we're thinking about. The literal origination of the ink ideas came from the Fountain Pen subreddit. And Diamine just goes with whatever they create. And I just think it's fantastic. And I think it's worth sharing. And I'm looking forward to these inks. I haven't been able to find a release date for these inks yet. But I'd imagine, you know, this is probably like a late spring type of summer thing, right? So the votes are in, the colors have been decided, the formulas have been decided. So now Diamine just has to make them, produce them, get them out into the system. And they're usually like a worldwide release. They're just part of the main product line now. Like Diamine Earl Grey, which is a great gray ink, came from this vote in a previous year. Like it's in Diamine Writer's Blood came from this vote in previous years that have become like core Diamine inks. And I just, I love this so much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Certainly an interesting thing to do. Like it's intriguing to me. Like with this kind of stuff, I wonder of like, is it best for the business to like to do it this way? Like sometimes, you know, there's that old ad. And I don't know if this, I don't believe this is always correct. It's like you don't just listen to what people ask you for. I can't remember the phrase, right? Like you have to like work out what is coming. You can't just do everything that people ask for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So where I think that comes into play here, and I agree with that sentiment, is the size and age of a company like Diamine, who has 150 years behind them. They're able to, you know, take, okay, let's say 2% of our energy to this. Yes. Where if you and I decided to have this ink company that we've been running for about five years, this would take 40% of our energy to accomplish. And then it's not as good of a decision for us, if that makes sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because that's the way I think about it. You're putting all that effort in for something that people tell you that they want, but then they maybe don't buy it. Like that's the concern, right? Right. That you run into that like you end up in a situation where you've made this thing that doesn't really have a point of view in it. It's just like what 100 people told you that they want. And then you're like, oh, all these people are going to buy it. But for whatever reason that I don't genuinely don't understand, it just doesn't work out that way. Right. Because people's intent to buy is not the same as people's actuality of buying.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. And you said the correct word. And I don't even think you know that you said it. But when you design things, especially as smaller companies, you said point of view, right? You have to make a decision that you believe in and are going to stand behind and can't let every single customer's whim affect that decision. Where smaller companies, that's hard for them to do. But a larger, stable, historical company like Diamine has that ability to absorb that a little bit better. So, yeah, it's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But like for a company of that size, it then is a good thing to do because it also generates, even if it doesn't result in sales as such, which it has, you say. But even if it didn't, it's good for building your community, which can be helpful around something that is ultimately like a faceless corporation kind of feel otherwise. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like literally people will talk year round about a singular ink from this brand. Yeah. And it's just a massive, enormous win for them. Yeah. And I very much believe like that wasn't their intent going into this, right? Like they think like, let's do this and see how it goes and we'll make a cool ink. And now it's just been, it's like, okay, yeah, that worked out perfectly. Let's keep going. So, yeah, it's fantastic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Some young marketing person at Diamine came up with this idea and was just told, oh, well, you just run it yourself and see what happens. Right. And then it turned out to be a big success. Yeah. You love to see it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to help you build your brand and grow your business online. With Squarespace, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell your products, services and the content that you create. Squarespace has got you covered by offering everything for you. So it's very easy to get started. You go and you sign up and you choose from one of their beautiful templates. They are categorized to try and make it easy for you to work out which one you want. Maybe it matches to the type of site you want to make, you know, whether you want a portfolio or a blog, or maybe it helps if you like the type of business that you're running. You can pick a template that kind of reflects that. And they also, what I like, especially for the business ones, is it gives you like a template page structure. So like for a type, for a website of this kind, you need a contact page and an about page and maybe you need an FAQ, that kind of stuff. So it helps you think not just about the design, but also about like what a website like yours is going to need, which I think is very cool. And they then have all the tools. Once you've got it set up, which is great to do, it's easy to do, it's all drag and drop. You just click and choose colors and fonts and you can resize everything. You don't need to know any code to get a beautiful professional website at the end of it. Then once your site's up and running, you can sell your products in an online store. It doesn't matter whether you sell physical or digital products. Squarespace has all of the tools and integrations that you need to start selling online. And then once you've got things going further, you can then use Insights to help take your business to the next level. So Squarespace has an Insight platform built in to tell you where your visitors are coming from, where your sales are generating from, and which channels are most effective for you. Then once you have that data, you can improve your website, you can improve your business, and build a marketing strategy based on your top content or your top products. So go and check this out for yourself right now. I've been using Squarespace for 13 years, maybe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I need to look at some anniversary dates for myself. It's got to be double digits.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I mean, it's probably a bit closer to that. I'm thinking about when I got started in podcasting, but I'd set up Squarespace's website for myself before. I was trying to do writing projects and stuff like that. So it's probably closer to 15 years now at this point. They are where I go when I want to start a website. So you should go there too. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict. You will get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One little small item I wanted to bring up was a little bit of a follow-up to me just heaping praise on Pilot's new mechanical pencil-led Instagram that I just fawned over and could write a whole dissertation on. Stationary-wise, I loved it. Pilot had a couple new things pop up into their feeds. One is a bit of artwork from an artist called Eric Small Things on – at least that's their Instagram handle.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You don't think that's their real name? If you couldn't imagine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, probably not their real name. Oh, okay. But they draw small things. And what they did for Pilot this time was essentially make digital wallpapers out of Pilot products. So there's like a – it looks like a poster, right? It's got like the Kakuno and the Dr. Grip and, you know, ink cartridges and ink bottles. And it's just this fun little bit of artwork. And they've made it so you can download, you know, like different sizes to have different wallpaper. And it's – yes, it's hashtag marketing like big time. It's good though. It's cool. It's cool. It's great, right? It just looks nice, yeah. This is, you know, just – it's those little things, right, that I get attracted to like this. Not only is the art just like really cool, like I don't care. It's like, hey, thanks Pilot for like doing something a little cool with an artist and sharing it with us. And just having these neat little things. So, yeah, if you're like a Pilot super fan like I am, you look at this and go, oh, man, that is super cool. Like I'm totally not going to use this as my wallpaper. Like it would be just too busy for me. But I love looking at this. And I love that they work with someone to make these types of things, right? Those are the types of things I want to keep praise on. Then I click over. Let's just keep things honest and real with Pilot here for a minute. Myke, we have talked about their product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I mess this up every time. It's I-L-M-I-L-Y, right? It's their little more like journaling focus. Basically, this is their Instagram product line. It's the I love me, I love you. Okay, there it is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was like, it must stand for something. And I reckon I-L-Y is I love you. But I couldn't work out what the I-L-M was.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I love me, I love you. I call it the Barney lineup for certain reasons. I was going to say, yes, it's very Barney. And they haven't, I haven't seen much on this product, right? And again, this is a really journaling goods, stationary store, small items, you know, stamps, pens, highlighters, markers, accessories for like your journaling and, you know, different things like that. It's a very, very highly specific sub brand. And they came out with an interesting product line. And I'm trying to decide if this is like the ink I, excuse me, the link I put in there is this kind of two color pen. And I thought it was a friction at first because it looks like the one of the classic friction barrel designs that they've reused. But it's really more of just like, hey, this is ballpoint pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I like me. I like you. It's not love.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, sorry. Sorry. I was too, too much into the Barney there. So I have reviewed one of the ballpoint pens that they've made for this product line before. And it's really good. Like Pilot makes great products. And they generally, what they'll do is they'll kind of take a shell of a product and tweak it for the sub product line like this. But they had this ballpoint pen. And I'll get a link for it for the show notes. It's actually the second image on their current Instagram. But I know that doesn't really fly for talking about on this podcast. But I'll get the name of it. It's really good, but it's just a little bit overpriced, a little bit premium. And I'm curious on how this product lineup is going for them in general. So this is one of those things that I don't talk about a lot, but I keep an eye on because I want to see if it succeeds. Right. And I'm sure just strictly in the Japanese market, it's probably doing pretty well because it's basically stationary design for Instagram. Right. Like you can tell with the aesthetic of this brand, that's what they're trying to do. And like Diamine, you know, they probably had a group in Pilot. Pilot's a much, much larger company than Diamine. They probably had a group that said, hey, let's build a product line that focuses on this. And they obviously got the backing to do it. It's been around a couple of years now. It doesn't look like there's any slowing down. But I'm curious, like I'm like I see no interaction on these Instagram posts, right? No comments and things like that. So I'm just kind of curious how it goes. So this is one of those things I always have in the back of my head that I wanted to bring up because we haven't talked about it in a while. And it still exists. And, you know, I don't hope it fails or anything. I'm just curious. I'm curious, like I'm very curious about how this goes because it's almost I don't know how additive it is, right? So like if Pilot has the friction and the friction is just blowing up by, you know, any measure, it looks like the friction is blowing up. And they have all different types of frictions. And then they have frictions for like the professionals and they have frictions for the journalers and they have frictions for the Instagrammers. Do we also need this full product line that is kind of like cannibalizing some of their other stuff? I don't know how that stuff works, but Pilot's a huge company. They know better than me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, a lot of that, like the journaling and Instagramming crowd like that is probably additive sales. I don't know if it's necessarily cannibalizing their existing products, right? Like at least that's the goal of this product line.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And the thing is, if you take a one-to-one product, like say if you have a Dr. Grip standard and a Dr. Grip in the I Like Me, I Like You product line, there's a premium just for that product line, even though it's the same physical product, just for the paint job and the exterior, right? So you might have like a 50% premium for the same pen. So they're making up for it like at the price point level as well. So it's interesting. One of those things that I love about stationery is there's all kinds of things out there. Myke, I think the next thing I want to talk about might be even more specific than the James Bond pen as far as usefulness to people. I backed a Kickstarter project called the Carto. That's K-A-A-R-T-O. And why did I back it? Well, strictly because it's weird and that I thought it would work, right? So I don't just back Kickstarter projects on a whim because, oh, pen, you know, it's a pen. Let me back it, right? If I think it's, you know, somewhat cool, somewhat interesting, something I think I will use, something unique I want to test out to see, hey, does this work? Does it not work? And the Carto kind of checked all those boxes for me. So what it is, Myke's already called it the Batarang. And I think that's kind of a good way to put it. It's a small, thin, curved pen that is designed in this very ergonomic way to just kind of relieve all stress when you're writing. It just kind of fits into your hand, fits into your grip, gets you into this very traditional way to hold the pen, which is honestly one of the biggest flaws, right? And it's not a flaw in the design. It's a, like what we said, it's a point of view. Like that's what we said earlier. This is an opinionated product. This is why I cannot recommend this product to anyone. You just have to know if this would work for the way you hold a pen. For me, with a traditional grip, yes, it slots right in. Like I can just pick it up and go. Like I don't even have to adjust anything. It just works for me. For someone else, they could look at that and say, I could never use this because it's not going to fit the way my fingers hold a pen. It uses the Pilot Hi-Tech C Colito ink cartridge. It's got this slot in the back where you slide in the cartridge and you can actually reverse the cartridge to protect the tip when you're not using it. It's a really neat little design. It wasn't very expensive. I think it was about $40 or so for me to test out, which that's like a fair price for me to like take a shot on something. Uh-huh. Um, it's aluminum and I have been using it daily for like the past two or three days. I really love it. There is a, the one writing challenge that I've had with it is, and it would be hard to even explain this on like a product video, but your, your writing angle is kind of fixed. The, the angle that the tip hits the paper is hard to adjust lower, right? So if you have a low writing angle, right? So if you think of a pen hitting the paper at a 45 degree angle, okay? So like the tip hits at a 45 degree angle. Just work with me on this. So the Carto hits it at a little bit higher angle than that. So it's a more vertical angle of the pen and it's hard to drop lower, say to like a 35% angle because of the backside of the pen, the way it works into your hand, you don't get the correct balance or aim with your, your writing instrument. So you're very fixed to a more vertical writing tip. So it's kind of specific in that way, but it feels great. Like it feels like you're writing with nothing when it's locked in there really good. Like I don't feel the pen. I don't feel it hitting my hand. I just write with it and go. And like, it's, it's weird looking, but it's essentially like any other pen for me. Um, you could never use this, right? Like a bunch of people could never use this. I don't know that it's even great as the selling point of being like a very ergonomic learn, you know, how to grip a pen type of thing. I think it's more, it should just be sold as, Hey, this is a fun writing tool. Like if you, you know, this is, it's weird and I've been working on this cool design and this is how it works. And I think for a lot of people it would work super well, but like, I wouldn't go more than that. Right. To say that, Hey, this is going to change anything. Right. It's just more of a cool toy, uh, to have. And, and I genuinely like it. Like I'm using the heck out of it, but I think it's for most people, it's probably a no go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I think so. This, you know, this feels like a very personal thing. I mean, I can just look at it and feel like this wasn't right. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And that's why this is, this is a very simple product to not recommend to anyone because it's a, it's a binary choice. You look at this product and you can go, yes, this will work for me or no, it will not work for me. There's not a lot of, well, maybe like it's, it's, it's either yes or no. For me, it's yes. I think, um, that's probably a small percentage of people, but like, I mean, it was obviously successfully backed. It was a smooth Kickstarter project, right? Like I haven't backed a lot of Kickstarter projects recently. Like this was just like, Hey, this looks cool. I backed it. The shipping timeframes were, you know, the basic couple of months and then boom, we're in, got the pin. Um, it showed up. I didn't even realize I had forgotten about it and here it was. And I've been kind of using it ever since it stays on the desk and it's just wild. Uh, I, I'm not going to stick it in my pocket or anything, but yeah, it's good to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Would it fit in the pocket? Just put it in the leg?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, if you, you can actually reverse the, uh, the tip. So it's protected right for storage and portability. Oh, so you pull out the refill on the backside, reverse it. Yeah. So there's a little neat little notch design in here that is kind of serves two purposes. One is it holds the back end of the refill when it's in the writing position. So the refill doesn't move. But secondly, when you want to remove the refill, the tip of the refill goes into like a, um, further away section that that's kind of like custom built to protect the refill. So it it's, it's smartly made. So speaking of smart, smartly made Myke, I wanted to give our shout out of the week to derail pens. So Adolphus who I got to meet at the Orlando pen show, um, and picked up a pen from him at the Orlando pen show this past fall was my first time meeting him. Uh, even though I'd seen him at a couple other pen shows before and what we're doing with shout out of the week. Um, as I mentioned last week, it kind of came from blog of the week that used to be shout out of the weeks can now be anything, Myke, this, this week, this week, this week, it's a maker, right? Sometimes we're going to have a YouTube channel. Sometimes we might have an Instagram channel on here, um, an Instagram feed on here to, to give a shout out to. And I wanted to give a shout out to Adolphus because he's super cool, makes some great pens. Uh, Caroline, who, who writes, um, these monthly meet your makers, make your articles for the pen addict. This just happened to come out in a perfect time for me to put them out in the shout out of the week. And, uh, Adolphus and derail pens, they, he attends a lot of pen shows, right? So if you like what you see in the blog, go check out all the things that he makes, check him out at a pen show coming soon to, to, uh, your area. And, uh, yeah, I just wanted to give a huge shout out to like an awesome person and some, an awesome pen maker. So, uh, we will continue to see more from derail pens and he's been making pens for a long time, long time. And he does a great job. So I wanted to give him a shout out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good one. All right. This episode is brought to you by pen chalet. They have all of your favorite products from your favorite brands and maybe even products that you don't know are going to be your favorite yet, but you'll find them at pen chalet. We're very fast and reliable customer service. You'll find them at the best prices around because every month they are discounting products up and down, closeout specials, you know, everything. I don't mean they're discounting things up. I just meant like up and down the product line. You know what I mean? You get what I'm saying.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I gotcha. I gotcha.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're always adding new styles of pens every month. You can go back to pen chalet. You can find yourself a new rollerball or a new fountain pen. You can find yourself a new pilot, a sailor, a cafeco at Monteverde and many more or even just the accessories that you're looking for, whether it's some new ink, a converter, a fountain pen case or holder. They got it all. Pen chalet do international shipping with great shipping rates. And if you're in the U.S. and spend over $75, shipping is free. Pen chalet has low prices on high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go right now to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password pen addict and you'll be able to see this week's special offer and get the code you need to save 10% on anything at any time at pen chalet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The one reason you should always check this page is because Ron just drops things in there that you don't think you would normally see. Right. So sometimes it's sometimes it's things you'd expect. Hey, you know, we're almost sold out of this pen, so let's move the last few units or things like that. But sometimes things pop up that you wouldn't expect. This time, the Lamy All-Star Bronze Fountain Pen, which was a several years ago edition, is now available. So this was one of the annual editions. It's like, did Ron just find a stock of these and now they're for sale on here?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's why you got to check this. And then I found something as I scrolled way down this list, Myke, something you never see. And I'm assuming I can talk about it, but there are retro 50 ones on sale here. So there's a couple of the popper models are on sale from Ron and they might be the pen chalet exclusive editions. I can't. I haven't clicked through to see exactly what.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lamy special edition Safari Fountain Pen strawberries and cream. It's there, baby. Oh, nice. If you want it, you can get it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, you can.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, you can.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, retro 51 is not something you normally see on this list. And the last one I want to talk about, the Viscont Rembrandt S, which I don't know if we mentioned recently. This is kind of a little bit of a change to Visconti's lineup. I think this is a newer price point that Visconti's trying to hit. And this is even discounted from there. I have never seen. Like, this is one of the most popular Visconti models. And they normally run around $200 or between like $2 and $250, depending on the model. This is outrageously priced and something that I even want to go look at. Oh, yeah. There's the strawberries and cream. So, yeah. There is a ton of stuff on this list. Oh, the Pinaferina. Wow, that's a good price. Okay. Yeah. Go look at the list. There's a lot of things. I've been a good boy this year, but maybe I need to go shopping at Pen Chalet myself here when we're done with the show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. It's Pen Chalet dot com. Go to the top of the website. You want to click the podcast link there. Enter the password Pen Addict, and you will get your grubby mitts on these special offers. So, thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show at Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got something on my desk here, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's been here a while.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's been off camera, as they say. What could this be? It's soft launch season, baby.



== Cortex Brand's Sidekick Notepad Launch ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It's soft launch season. The next product from Cortex brand is now available. It's called Sidekick Notepad. This is the first podcast I'm talking about it on. Oh, nice. But I felt like this is something Pen Addict listeners would like to hear about. I want to say I'm in soft launch season. We're kind of announcing it on the Cortex podcast in February. But this product has been in development for so long and has actually been sitting at Cotton Bureau since November. It got to the point where me and Gray were completely sick of the fact that it wasn't available for sale and decided to put it on sale. And it has actually been very helpful for me so far in kind of like building the story of the product in a way to be able to explain it to potential customers. You know, like in what imagery we show and trying to explain how to use it, what it is and how it works. And so also today is like my first crack at trying to explain the Sidekick Notepad to people in audio form. It is a desk pad. Like it is a landscape style desk pad with perforated pages. It has 60 pages of Munk and Lynx 100 GSM. So it's the same paper we use in the theme system journal, but slightly thicker. It is made by hand in London, England, which I am immensely proud of. We found a supplier in London. I have spent a lot of time at their manufacturing facility over the last year that we've been working on the product. It has been in development for since June of 2021 is when we started work on this project. And it was in manufacturing on and off for about a year because we had a lot of stuff we needed to work out to make it work the way we wanted it to work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to come back to that part in a moment, the manufacturing part, because I just think that you would find some of this fascinating too. It is the way that the notepad is separated. It's about two thirds dot grid and then one third, maybe like more like a quarter really of a to-do list. So similar to the journal, it's got the little circles of the lines through and boxes next to them. The idea for this notepad is that it's kind of serves two purposes. The one that I use it in the most is I have it sitting in between me and my keyboard. We measured it out in such a way that I think is a very comfortable for a lot of people, for most people. We measured it on people of all sizes to see that this was like a good size, a good depth to put your keyboard behind. It's 18 centimeters by 30 centimeters. We also kind of molded it around about the width of a 13 inch MacBook. It was like that's the kind of width that we wanted. It's a little smaller than that because it just didn't want to match up completely. Basically, the what else can I say? The the cover of the notepad flips over and around the back. So you get this kind of spine across the top and it goes around to the back because really this notepad is supposed to remain open on your desk like that is its ideal form. So you open it and leave it in front of you to take notes whenever you want. And the other place that it is perfect is for meetings. So one of the ideas for this product in my mind is whenever I go to a meeting, I don't like to have a laptop in front of me because I feel like it puts a barrier between me and the people that I'm talking to. And also it's too easy for me to get distracted by what's going on on my computer. And so the sidekick notepad is made in such a way that you would bring it to a meeting, take all your notes down, write your action items down in the to do area and then take it back with you and tear off the page or whatever you want to do. Keep it around until you tear off and start again with the next page. In that element, we had to work with our paper suppliers and manufacturers to laminate the paper that we're using to make it thick enough that when you picked up the notepad, it didn't bend under its own weight. It was very important to me. But the weightage of the paper that we wanted to use did not exist. So we had to go through an expensive process of laminating paper together to get a thickness, like a weight that this product's not offered in. The cover and backboard paper is made of something called Extract by another British company called G.F. Smith, who I worked with a friend, Matt, who works there. You've met Matt, right? I believe you may have met him at my wedding.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to blank right now, but I know we've had this conversation about Matt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And this paper is called Extract, and it is made from recycled coffee cups, which is the only thing you can do with the paper coffee cup. Paper coffee cups are otherwise unrecyclable because they have the plastic lining inside. But G.F. Smith has been pioneering with this machine that can take these cups and with a very expensive process, produce paper at the other side of it. So the sidekick notepad's cover and back is made of coffee cups that otherwise would have been sent to landfill. So I'm very happy that we were able to find that product and the paperwork's great. We've gone a little extra with the debossing this time and put a clear coat foil inlay on the debossing so it shines more. I am so freaking proud of this thing. I have been using the sidekick notepad every day for nearly a year in some form, and it's exactly what I want. It has 60 pages. I don't use a page a day. I will use a page every couple of days or whatever whenever I'm ready to start fresh. Tear it out. It's got a wonderful perforation, and you're ready to go again. So sidekick notepad, it's made to sit between you and your keyboard. It's made to go with you on your meetings. You take your notes. You write down your to-dos, and when you're done, tear a page off, and you're ready to go for the next day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So a couple of things. One that I've talked to Myke about, and he sent me one and had me test it out. The paper is awesome. It works perfectly with fountain pens of all shapes and sizes. You can see the sheen on a sheen ink. You can see shading on a shading ink. The smoothness of the paper works with your extra fine nibs. It's great for markers, pencils. I threw everything at it, which is what I normally do when I test, and it just worked super well. Outside of your standard Sharpie markers, right? So Sharpie, you need sketchboard paper for that to not bleed through. Everything else is perfect.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But the bleeding through is not so important because, really, it's only printed on one side. So if it bleeds through to the other side, it's just a blank page on the back there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but literally none of the fountain pens bled or feathered or even the Zebra Mildliner, which is generally a highlighter, but it's more of a marker. That didn't even touch anything on the page. The things I haven't specifically called out to Myke are the little details that opinionated designer boy over here appreciates. If you didn't mention it, I was going to mention the back cover. It's ridiculously good. I have a very short list of particular things that I overly enjoy about notebooks, especially one is extremely thick and rigid covers for products that need them. And while you might be keeping this at your desk, it still just gives you this feel that your notebook is going to stay how you want it to stay. And that's how the backboard is. This was that process I was talking about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They presented to us originally putting it on a gray board. And I have a version like that and I didn't like it. It didn't look finished. And then they gave me the thickest paperweight they had in extract. But when I picked it up, it would fold over on itself. I was like, this isn't going to work. So we did this thing and we at one point used all of the extract that was available in the UK. Like that was like a delay that we had. We had to wait for more to be made.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's ridiculously good, the back cover. The second, which I didn't even put together in my head, even though I've seen it the whole time until you mentioned about the printing. You actually printed the reverse side of the cover. So the Cortex logo is on the outside. But when you flip it over to actually use it, there is a little sidekick deboss in the top left of the spine. That's abnormal. Like you don't like even though, OK, does that technically make your pad better? No. But it's a design element that you don't see. Right. Like this is something that I noticed because it doesn't belong there. And when I see it, I was like, that's a choice. They made a choice to do that little thing and it makes it that much better for me. So those are the little things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like the pre-folding of the cover. Like all of this stuff was so complicated to work out. Like that debossing on this kind of the spine was a mathematical nightmare for all. But like trying to work out like exactly where it was placed and then producing a file that it would be the right way up. Because technically it's printed upside down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Because it's on the fold. Yep. But on the inside. So, yes, it is. I look at that and go, that is not normally done because it is difficult. And like having gone through all these printing processes, I look at that and I was like, that is a cool touch. Do you want to know why it's there? They did not have to do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can tell you why it's there. So when we originally made the product, it was just blank up there. Right. And as I was using it, I was like, well, I've designed this product to be open. Like that's what it's for. Right. It has a cover, but you're supposed to just leave it open. So it's always ready for any notes that you might have.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But then there was no branding on the product at all. Right. Like you wouldn't look at it and remember what it was or like people wouldn't see it. Like all of the photos we'd take of it wouldn't have anything on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you didn't steal from the paper layout to put your logo in the corner of the grid. Right. Which is what the choice a lot of companies would make.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I was like, well, I didn't want to put the brain logo on there either because it was a bit too busy. Like we tried that and I found it a little too busy. And so we spent a lot of time trying to come up with a name for the product. And like this is part of the production process as well. Like this was originally just called Sidekick. But the longer I used it, I was like, we could make more than one of these. Like we could make hopefully if this does well, like I want to make just a to-do list version. Right. Well, then that's Sidekick to-do list. So I didn't want to. So I thought, well, I like the name Sidekick Notepad. It also helps with Googling because, you know, the word Sidekick is very generic, right? Right. And so, you know, it helps with intellectual property and stuff like that. So I was like, oh, we'll call it Sidekick Notepad. And also it allows us a little bit of flexibility that hopefully this could be a little sub-brand for Cortex Brand. And I don't think we would put Sidekick Notepad on the top. I don't know. Maybe I'll see how it looks when we go for our second printing. But that's why it says Sidekick there right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's great. That's what those little things I noticed. The whole thing is great. Y'all did a really good job. So you should be proud. I know this was a long process. And I'm glad it exists. And great job.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'll give you some deets and stuff. So it was made by a company in London called F.E. Berman. They are based in South London. I can take the train to them. And there was a couple of months where I was going every week because we were working through various things. There's a couple of things about it that are fascinating to me. So I'm referring to this as hand-assembled. And I don't think people believe me. But I will tell you, this product is hand-assembled. Like machines print the paper, right? Right, right. But I have watched the paper being fed into a binding machine. And I have watched a guy bind it. I watch a guy cut each notebook. Every notebook is cut to size by hand because they glue it, right? So it's glued to the top. But you have to make the notebook a little bit wide or you'd have to glue like a glob of glue on each side. So they make it a little wide. And then someone goes in by hand, cuts, cuts, cuts. The corners, the rounded corners, they had to buy a machine to do this where they made a blade, a rounded blade. Someone feeds it into the machine, steps on a pedal, boom, cuts it. And every single one of these products is made like this. It's one of the reasons it took so long. But the other reason was I had to push them in a bunch of directions, right? Right. This is one of those things where I know you must have experienced this too. When you haven't come from this world, you have ideas that aren't the way that things are done. Correct. But then you push and work with people to find a way to do it. And I found it incredibly valuable. And I think they did too. They were like things that this company had done in the way that I wanted them. They didn't have a machine to do the rounded corners that I wanted. So they found one and this was now a new thing that they can offer, right? They can round the corners with notebooks. But like it was so fulfilling and so amazing that I would get to go there and I would talk with these guys. And, you know, this book had to go through some revisions in its design to make it work the way that I wanted. Like the original, I wanted the circular perforation that we have in the theme system journal. Right. Right. Along the top. Yeah, it's like a dot. Yeah. And they made it. They made a version for me and it didn't look right because it was too messy at the top. Because it was like all these like little sharp corners left. It looks great in the journal because it's like a tiny corner. But you got an entire 30 centimeters of that thing and it looked bad. You know, so like we had to go through all this product revision. They were an incredible partner for us to work with. And I am so excited. And we applied for and got a certification that we got the Made in Britain certification, which I am also immensely proud of. And I want to get out ahead of it. These things are made in London. They are put on a boat and sent to Philadelphia. Right. And that's where they're shipped from. If you are buying it in the UK, I just want to let you know something. You are paid. The reason it's more expensive is because you're paying the VAT. Right. You're paying the sales taxes. This is the same for most of Europe, especially. The actual shipping of this product is expensive. It costs $12 to ship it inside of the US because it's oddly sized. And also, that's what shipping costs. Shipping costs what it costs. Like there is no way around this. Right. Like we are, I feel, I am now like full on independent maker. Yeah. Shipping podcast. Let's go. No, because it's like Amazon messes up for all of us because they made people, including me, believe that shipping is free. Shipping is not free. No one's making money on shipping except the shipping companies. Right. Like it's just what it costs. So my point is, especially in the UK, I've checked this myself. It costs about $12 still to ship, but you're paying 20% on top, which is sales tax. If we had a facility in the UK, but we shipped it to you from, you'd still pay the VAT on top of the US sales price. Like that's what we charge. It's the same for Europe. So if you're going to the thing like, wait a second, this is like $50 in total. Please check that there's taxes being added to it. There are taxes we have to pay. And what it means by you paying it at checkout. We spoke about this on the show before. You pay it at checkout means you won't get a customer's notification later on. And then it saves you money because then you don't have to pay a handling fee. You still have handling fees. So like, trust us. We're doing the best we can. If it was as easy to just have a second facility, I tell you, we would have done it a long time ago. It is so hard. Like, you know, we work at Cotton Bureau and they, you know, and even if we worked, you know, Cotton Bureau only shipped from the US at the moment. I don't know if they're ever going to change that. But if we went, if we were with a company that didn't, that had the opportunity for us to have a second logistics facility, I still think at the scale that we're at right now, I don't think we could do it because it's hard enough to manage one set of stock numbers. I would have to manage two sets of stock numbers. And I just don't know if we're at the stage in our business right now where we can do that. I hope that one day we will. Hey, if you want it, support Cortex Brown to buy a psychic notepad. That's what I'll say. I'm so proud of this product. You know, I don't know how many times I will say this, but I'll say it right now. I love the journal. The journal is so important to me. But I think psychic notepad is the best thing that I've designed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. Yeah, I love it. It's really great. And I love manufacturing shipping digressions. It's my favorite. Yeah. I know the listeners don't, but I'm over here just like, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, this is, I'm not going to talk about that so much on Cortex, but I feel like this is the place where I can talk about it with you.



== Challenges in Manufacturing and Product Development ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, we've discussed it. Like we've discussed it. We've tried to level set expectations. Like this stuff is hard. Like manufacturing is hard, right? Yeah, my best business tip to anyone who's just listened to all of this is don't start your own printing business. Like that's the best advice I can give anyone. It's a nightmare. So it's great that you, and then my second biggest advice, because I get this question in emails a lot and we can wrap it here after this and tell everyone how to email me. If you want to email me, Brad, I have this notebook idea. Where's the best place I should get it printed? It's the place you can walk to or drive to. Like I can't, there is no printer. Like that you can use across halfway across the country and be happy with the results. You have to physically go into that facility, explain your ideas and work with them in a long, drawn out, confusing process to get made what you want to made. That's how we did it at Nock. That's how Myke has done it with this product. And it is the best way to get anything you want made like that. So there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Our journals were made in Poland and it was very expensive because I had to keep paying for them to make me one-offs and they were like a couple of hundred dollars per one-off. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like a couple. Yeah. Like if you want one notebook, it's going to cost you probably between like two and $500.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because, you know, I could explain a thing and then I'll be like, well, they say, yeah, that's no problem. But I was like, I need to see that you understand it. Make me one. You know, and it was so expensive, which is like not a thing that I had to do. Because when I was going down to F.E. Berman, they would have it and I'd be like, what if we did it like this? And then they could show me. Yep. You know, like I had a way that I wanted to do the binding and they made a version for me and showed me that like it won't stay together if you do it this way. And then they were able to show me like other books that they'd made with this specific type of glue binding and it worked perfectly. They were like, you know, they had this big, thick book and they were holding it up by just one page of the book and it didn't separate. Oh, yeah. And I was like, yeah, that's what I want. So like that was the experience I was able to have here and it was a joy. And, you know, I'm so happy with our new partners here and I'm so proud of this product. Like, again, if you ever want to take notes while you're at your desk, if you ever want to take notes while you're in a meeting, Psychic Notepad is made for you. So go check it out at cortexmerch.com.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I think that's a wrap this week, buddy. We got a lot of STPA to get to next week. I already have new topics I want to discuss next week. So we are rolling. We're rolling in it right now. So I love stationery, Myke. I love stationery. Let's keep talking about it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you for giving me the time to talk about this today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. I'm glad we could. It's been a while.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you want to find Brad's work online, go to penaddict.com and you can go to spokedesign.com. Congratulations on your four years of being in business together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Crazy, right? Yeah, I can't believe that. It's cool stuff. Like, you know, we talk about making stuff that makes you smile and that you want to use personally. Like Myke just went through all this with a sidekick. Yeah, it's that kind of feeling I get when I pick up any spoke pen. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad streams multiple times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Brad on micro.blog. You can find me. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram. Go check out the Cortex brand Instagram too. I'm trying to do more with it there. Oh, cool. And I'd be interested to know what people think. So that's at Cortex brand. You can go to cortexmerch.com where you can check out psychic notepad, themes, list and journal, stuff like that. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Squarespace for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I've had a blast making it too. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad. Bye.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]