The Pen Addict 251/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	251
Title:	That's Not a Colour
Release Date:	April 5th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 251
Audio File:	Audio Episode 251
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 251
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict episode 251. Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, what's up, Myke? Man, I am whipped. The after party of the episode 250 last week, it was a throwdown and I am just exhausted. You know, you were wasted bouncing off the walls. Light shade on my head. Yeah, pen ink was flying everywhere and my walls are ruined. It was quite the event. So, thank you everyone for attending the episode 250 party. It was amazing.

Myke Hurley: We had a good one. You sound pretty rough, actually.

Brad Dowdy: I'm dealing with some stuff right now, you know? It's the episode 250 hangover. It's a thing.

Myke Hurley: It's a real deal. It is a real deal.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but thankfully, Anna kept us straight on the last episode and didn't let us get too, too wild in the after party. So, we're here to bring more pen goodness to these fine people in episode 251. We have crossed the threshold. There's no turning back. Episode 500 or bust from here on out, right? That's what they tell me. Yeah, it's going to happen because I'm not stopping anytime soon. And like we've said it, about every 10 episodes or 20 episodes or so, I've never had more fun doing this than I do right now. So, what's going to stop us? The pen industry ain't going anywhere. They are definitely not going anywhere. And the pen-related Kickstarters are not going anywhere either, Myke. We have a couple to discuss. This week, the first one, I am super pumped about. So, there's a blog called Squishy Ink that I've just been following her for the past, I don't know, six months or a year. It hasn't been around very long. She is super into inks, like crazy amounts of ink reviews, like four ink reviews a week, all this rare Japanese stuff. So, I love her site and she costs me money. And she let me in on a little project she's working on called the Hippo Noto, which she is putting together a full notebook-sized, thick, 500-page Tomoe River paper notebook. Now, Myke, I know you're not the biggest Tomoe River guy, but what do you think about the Hippo Noto?

Tomoe Paper

Myke Hurley: I think it looks really sweet. I mean, I am a Tomoe guy. You're not cross-field. Oh, that's right.

Brad Dowdy: I did buy you that one. I did buy you that one.

Myke Hurley: I use it all the time.

Brad Dowdy: It's cool, isn't it? I love, like, having the bound Tomoe paper in, like, a dot grid. You know, that's why I fell in love with the Hobonichi originally. I was like, it's Tomoe and it's graph paper and I can do this, except it had dates and that just screwed me up. This does not have dates. It's a regular notebook. But it's not regular. This thing is far for regular. It's far for regular. Number one, it's gigantic in thickness. Number two, it's small in stature. It's not an overly big notebook. It's somewhere between A6 and A5, I'm guessing. She calls it Pocket A5. And it's a good size. I wonder if it would benefit with the thickness to be a little bit bigger. But I just don't care because it's bound Tomoe River in a hardcover. And anytime, if you have bound Tomoe River and not blank pages, I'm there. Like, done. So, I backed this for two notebooks. And not only that, there's a special Robert Oster Hippo Purple ink that is made for this project. There's a good story behind this project. You should go and read it. Watch the video. Or no, there's not a video. Sorry. I say that as I'm used to just Kickstarters having video. There's not a video in this one. But there's a great story behind the notebook. You should all go read that. And this first stretch goal has already hit. So, there's going to be another color cover.

Brad Dowdy: I'm all about it. Like, the community just ate this up when it launched. And, you know, Tomoe River paper, special edition ink, that's how you do a Kickstarter. I don't know what else to say besides that, right? It's pretty awesome.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let me ask you a question on this one, right? Because I've never used a notebook this thick before. I don't think many people will have. What's it going to be like when you're using the first few pages on this?

Brad Dowdy: It's going to be very raised. But, you know, the Tomoe, like your cross field, I think, is close to 400 pages already. So, it's not going to be that much thicker. Okay. It's just going to be a little bit...

Myke Hurley: It looks thicker because it's small, I think.

Brad Dowdy: It's smaller. So, yeah. So, you're going to have, you know, your wrist is going to be raised. It's going to be a little deep, you know, kind of right up front. But, I'm interested to see how it works. So, yeah. If it was me, I would have liked a little wider. But, like I said, it's Tomoe. I'm used to the smaller format for Tomoe with the Hobonichis, which is A6 size, which is smaller than this. And, yeah. It'll be a little thick. I'm interested to see how, like, yeah, the first few pages go. But, after that, I think you're just sailing from there.

Myke Hurley: I got my pledge in for one notebook and one bottle of the ink.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Nice. Yeah. So, I did two notebooks. And the next stretch goal is $30,000 for a pin loop. And the $40,000 is the ivory Tomoe paper option, which I would vote for. So, I bet it gets to $40,000. This thing funded in.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, they've got 24 days and we're at $28,000. This is going to get to $40,000.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It funded. What's the chat room saying? Funded in 23 hours? I don't know. The first stretch goal was hit in 23 hours. It funded, like, quicker than that. Like, I might not even. It went so fast. I don't even know if I got in before they hit their goal. So, very successful. I hope everything goes well with this Kickstarter. If you like Tomoe River paper and ink, this is something you should very much consider. Because it's, you know, Squishy Ink is part of this wonderful community that we're in. And we're going to talk about that later in the show about, you know, supporting creators and, you know, why there's a difference between, say, supporting the Hippo Noto or buying Rhodia. So, we got a question about that from the Ask TPA.

Myke Hurley: There will be a choice at the end of the campaign for blank line or dot grid paper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's cool. Yep. So, I'm all about that. This will be good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, of course. I just was worth saying, we're recording this episode in advance because of some travel. So, it won't be 24 days and it won't be at 28 grand. It will be much higher than that, right? Good point. I wonder where it will be when people actually hear this episode.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I bet we'll be over 30.

Indiegogo Campaign

Myke Hurley: Yep. While we're talking about Kickstarters, I want to just mention an Indiegogo campaign that I have backed. It's huge and I am dubious about it actually becoming a product even though I've backed it because if it does, it will be awesome. It's called Nimuno, the Nimuno Loop. It is a tape, a rubber tape that you can stick onto stuff and then put Lego blocks on the tape. It's like a big rubber Lego that has adhesive on the back of it. So, you can put Lego bricks on it and it can go up in any, like you'll stick up on the wall and then put Lego on the wall. Right. It's raised one and a half million dollars. It has 14 days left. I think it looks really freaking cool and if it works out, like I would love this, right? Like I could do weird things with Lego, you know, from like a presentation perspective. I just, I mean, they try and get around it by being like, you can use any toy block thing. Yeah. I just don't know if they're going to be able to ship this without Lego being like, no, you're not doing this.

Brad Dowdy: Right. That's my first question, right? Are they going to get, you know, cease and desisted, sued, something?

Myke Hurley: And I don't think that they necessarily should. Like this is an inventive product. I think it's a good idea. Like it's not one of those things. I mean, I don't look at this and think to myself, oh, they're just profiting off the back of Lego. Like I don't think that, honestly. Like because you could use other toy blocks and you could use Lego, but it's just, it's like an accessory to Lego. Right. But Lego is very protective of their product.

Brad Dowdy: And this is big enough. They sure as heck know that this is a thing.

Myke Hurley: Oh, Lego are very aware of it, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Because I started seeing this about a week ago. I started seeing it kind of go across my feeds. And I was actually going to put this in one of our show notes because even though it's not pen related, I like, I think it's interesting enough that like the people that listen to this show are into this kind of thing. Yeah. I think it's really cool. Like I would totally be for this. It's a great idea. It's a really great idea. Yeah. And you can do cool pen stuff with it too. You know, make a different pen cases and pen holders on your desk and have them stuck on there and have some rad little Lego things going on. But yeah, you certainly can't say Lego in the name. And I just wonder, you know, well, I know you will keep an eye on this and I would like an update.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I'm a backer. I mean, and they're saying they'll ship August.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that's the thing about this Indiegogo is if it funds, the money's gone, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: They are essentially a money in advance thing. So if they get their pants suit off of them, you're stuck. Yeah. It would have to be canceled beforehand. So there's two weeks left, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're to the good.

Myke Hurley: There was a big Kickstarter recently that got, that this happened to, I can't remember what the product was now, but I think it was like, it was some kind of like, it was a digital product. You know, like it was, it was like, you know, it wasn't like just like a pen or something. It was like a little computer thing. I wish I could remember what it was, but they were just like, yeah, no, it's gone. And then all the money's gone and you're not going to get refunds. You're not going to get any products. It's all gone. We went bankrupt. And it was like one of these Kickstarters that raised over like a million dollars or something. Like it happens. You got to be prepared for that when you go in on it. Like I've put $29 into this thing because I would really love it if I can get it. But I actually think that there's a very strong chance that that money's just going to be gone.

Brad Dowdy: I think there is well over a 50% chance. Like I think this is a dice roll.

Myke Hurley: So, but it's again, like by the time this episode comes out in a few days after we record it, it might not exist anymore. Who knows?

Brad Dowdy: It might not be there anymore.

Brad Dowdy: What will be there when this project is there or gone and will be there somehow for the rest of your life because you can track it is something called the cross. Are we going to go tracker or track R?

Myke Hurley: It is tracker and I will say at this point that tracker has been a previous RelayFM sponsor. Brad found this clearly not knowing that or not remembering that tracker had been a sponsor and he put it in the notes. I do want to mention that straight up front. Like no one's asked us to put this in there, but tracker have been a sponsor of some RelayFM shows in the past. Okay.

Bluetooth Technology

Brad Dowdy: So they have not sponsored our show. I did. I'd never heard of them, but they're a standalone company that works with other companies to integrate their Bluetooth tracking technology into products.

Myke Hurley: Well, they also, they make their own as well. So sure, sure, sure. They make their own little dealios, their own little things. I have them in my bags, right? So I can track my bags.

Brad Dowdy: Would it be unfair to say if you're familiar with tile, it has that type of technology? It's exactly the same thing. Okay. So what tracker has done in this case, why it's relative to the show is they've partnered up with cross, the pen manufacturer. And I didn't hear much about this until the past couple of weeks, although I think it's might've been around. I don't know. Maybe it just started getting pressed this month, but I think the pen has been around a little bit. It's called the cross peerless tracker. And it's just what you think it is. It's a Bluetooth integration into a pen. That way, if you lose your pen, you have the app on your phone, you can then find your pen again. What are your thoughts on this?

Myke Hurley: So I'll straight up say that like all cross pens, I do not think this is a good looking pen. And neither would I want it, like Bluetooth tracking or not. But what this is, this is cross completely understanding their customer base, which they are very good at doing. This is such a great executive gift. Yeah. Because it's like, I bought you this really nice pen and you won't lose it. Right. It's like it is addressing a problem that many people think they're going to have of expensive pens that you won't lose it. Right. And I think that's, I think it's very interesting. I think it's an interesting product. I think it's a clever, very clever collaboration. I think that this will, I think this will sell pretty well for them, honestly.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I'm pretty much on the same page. The problem I have is they blew out an already large pen design to make it larger. Yes. Big. It's real big. To fit the tech in.

Myke Hurley: I bet it's weighted so badly. Oh my God.

Brad Dowdy: I think they might have crossed. Yeah. They might have crossed a balance threshold here. That's not going to work. So like the cross Townsend, I think it's kind of the design. I mean, this is a basic cross design. And when it was already a large pen, like it was pushing the maximum size that I think a lot of people would be comfortable writing with a pen with. And this blew it out in every direction, like diameter, length, everything. I'd like to see this pen. I don't know if there's images of it next to a regular Townsend and see what this is. Like this is something I would never use. This is something they will sell the heck out of, just like you said. It actually, I mean, it looks good. I just think it's too big. The integration of the Bluetooth, it's kind of like the roll stopper, which is, it's kind of cool how they integrated it. It's just super large, right? It's just a big, fat, chunky pen. If I have a pen that size, I'm already not going to lose it. And I don't lose pens anyway, but I think they will sell the heck out of this. So we're looking at like $250 US for this pen. I mean, it's right in that category. Like someone's going to walk into a store in New York and say, yeah, we need five of these for the board. And this is what we're doing there. I mean, it'll sell. It'll do well. I would be shocked if I ever saw one in person. But someone will take me to that task. I really like that it has a replaceable battery.

Myke Hurley: Because the actual tracking units themselves that they sell, they're not replaceable batteries. Because they're just this little cheap thing that you're supposed to keep for a year or two. And then you replace it, right? Like that's just kind of, it is in essence its own battery, right? Like it's like the cost of the battery or whatever. But this just takes, I think, those little watch batteries and you get a year battery life from them. But you can just replace them.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. And I think that's good. But that goes into the size of the pen too, right? I mean, yeah. That technology, that's all added into that.

Myke Hurley: So, see, I'm sure they probably could have made it smaller if the battery was integrated. But I think they made the right trade off. Because it's a $250 pen. Right. You don't want to be asking people to replace it because the battery died. True.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think you have to do it that way. Totally. Totally. So, I'd be interested in seeing one in person and see what it feels like. But I don't think this is something I would ever own. Yep. But I do agree with you that I think they will sell. I think this will do well for Cross.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I do.

Brad Dowdy: What I think is even better, Myke, did you know this before I said this? Because I feel like I missed out on this when I was talking about the Mondo Verde One Touch pen that I like so much that Ron at Pen Chalet had a big sale on. Yep. I remember us talking about it. I didn't buy because I already had one. I don't need another one. And then my good friend Mary Collis comes out with this review at her wonderful blog from the Pen Cop. OMG, I didn't know this was a thing was basically my response. Same here.

Myke Hurley: I saw it in refill and I was like, what?

Brad Dowdy: I was like, how did I miss this? How did I not know this was a thing? So, essentially, when we were talking about the Mondo Verde One Touch, we were commenting on how there's five or so versions of the pen. You know, ballpoint, rollerball, fountain pen, pencil, whatever one I'm missing. Maybe there's only four. But the rollerball, I just assume, was your regular old Mondo Verde rollerball. Turns out it is short international ink cartridge compatible. So, it ships with ink cartridge refills just like from your fountain pen, short international cartridges. So, Mary, as a good pen addict would do, she filled up one of her empty short international ink cartridges with Robert Oster fire and ice. And the output looks wonderful. This is always a sketchy thing when companies do fountain pen fillable rollerballs.

Myke Hurley: They call it the ink ball.

Brad Dowdy: The ink ball. So, hopefully it was designed to flow a little bit better because that's your issue with companies that have done this in the past. Like, Jay Harbin and Kaweco. The ink just doesn't flow very well. It's a very dry, not lubricated ink ball. So, I wonder if this was manufactured to allow the ink to flow a little bit better because you can't really control the ink. Like, if you're going this route, I mean, you can always say, well, it works well with Monteverde's ink cartridges. But, you know us, we're not going to stick with that. We're going to play with it because that's why we want it because we can do weird things with it just like Mary did. It's just, it's awesome. It's ridiculously cool. I love this pen and I have to get one. I haven't bought it yet. Yeah, I want one. I want one. But I'm totally getting one. They'll be at the, I know they'll be there at the Atlanta Pen Show because their distributor usually comes. So, someone will have them there and I'm getting it. It's probably like 40 bucks or something. I missed the last sale.

Myke Hurley: And it has a ruler, a spirit level, a stylus and two screwdriver heads built into it. It's like, what is this like monster, this like beautiful Frankenstein? It is a pen that has two screwdrivers in it, a ruler, a spirit level and you can put fountain pen ink into it. What is this thing? It's incredible.

Brad Dowdy: My spirit level is high.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I need to get one of these.

Brad Dowdy: I need to get one of these. So, yeah, this is going to be a thing. So, I actually, I started to go put one in my cart and then I couldn't decide on the color. And I was like, well, I'll just get one at the Atlanta Pen Show and I can look at them all. Because it comes in about six colors. And I'm all about this. I am super jacked about this pen. I love it. I love it, love it, love it. So, thank you, Mary, for opening my eyes and learning me something. It was really cool. The next new product, like we talked about on the last episode and I kind of was going to get all these together. But it's just too much, which I'll let you talk about. But Baron Fig has introduced multiple new products in the past four weeks, maybe three weeks. So, I did the Snakes and Ladder Archer Pencil last week and it's just average. Like, it's good looking. I like how other pencils write better. Before that, they introduced the Confidant Plus and Pocket Sizes to the Confidant, which is their main primary brand, I guess you could say, is the Confidant. That's what the company was built on. And then on top of that, they went and dropped a pen sheath on us, Myke. So, in the last few weeks, we've had lots of figs falling from the tree from the Lord's Baron. So, what are you thinking about all these new products? Anything you're interested in? Are you over it? Or what do you got going on?

Myke Hurley: I'm not... I mean, you know, the Confidant, I don't own any of them and it's not a notebook that I'm looking for. You know, like I'm just not looking to buy notebooks like that. But I do think that especially the addition of the big one, if I was a Baron Confidant fan, like if it was my notebook of choice, I would be super into the big one. Yeah. Right? I think that is... I think that this is a really sensible thing for them to do because clearly... I mean, clearly the Confidant sells best because they already sell a small notebook, right? I mean, so it shows you the fact that they now have a small Confidant shows you, I think, how their products sell. Yeah. And I think that this is a very smart move for them to make a change to their product line without adding a brand new product. I'm really pleased that this is just an extension of the Confidant rather than like another new thing, right? Like a brand new thing that they sell. Like, oh, now we have this third notebook, which is a big notebook. So, I like that. The pen sheath, I mean, fine. It's like an accessory. It actually looks pretty nice, but I don't know why I would want it.

Myke Hurley: It looks really nice, like for what it is. Like, it looks like a really... I like the colors that they've chosen and stuff like that. But like, I just... I don't really have a personal need for it, like for a little leather case to put one pen in.

Kaweco Pinch Sheath

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, let's start with the sheath. Sheath. Wow. Sheath. Sheath. Sheath. I just got it in two days ago, yesterday, whatever. It's exactly like the Kaweco pinch sleeves that they sell, that Kaweco sells, to where it is a very unimpressive product when you receive it. It's super thin. It's flat. There's like nothing to it. Except when you use it, it's kind of perfect, right? I said the exact same thing about the Kaweco sheath. Good grief. Can we call it something? Can we call it a sleeve? Nope. Because apparently, I cannot pronounce sheath. I'll just have to slow down. Chief's sheath. Change my mind.

Myke Hurley: Love this product.

Brad Dowdy: Love everything about it. So, it's completely unimpressive upon arrival, but it's perfectly functional. Like, I use the heck out of that Kaweco one for my Lilliputs. It's just this tiny, thin piece of leather stitched together. It feels flimsy. I won't say it looks cheap because it doesn't. It's leather. It's nice. But you're like, wow, I paid, you know, 20 bucks or whatever it is for this floppy little thing. But I love it. Like, I carry my Lilliput around in that sheath in my pocket all the time. And this is the, I mean, it's, I wouldn't be surprised if the same manufacturer made these because it feels and looks exactly the same. So, therefore, it's nice. I really like it. Like, I will, I put in the alphabet. I got the slate colored one as opposed to the yellow gold, which we don't really need to do that, Baron Fig. It's tan. Let's just call this tan leather instead of yellow gold. That's something Donald Trump would be into. So, let's just call this tan. It's tan leather. It's not yellow gold leather. And slate is gray.

Myke Hurley: What's yellow gold?

Brad Dowdy: It's the color of the pen sheath, Myke.

Myke Hurley: That's not a color.

Brad Dowdy: It's, so the tan, I got the slate one. So, I just put the alphabet in it. And it's just like the Kaweco one. It's perfect.

Myke Hurley: Yellow and gold are two different colors. It's like calling it blue red.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't see this until this morning. I was like, what are you doing with the yellow goldness? I just noticed it. They just, yeah. You went too far with that one, Joey. It's tan. It's a tan sheath. Yellow gold is not a color.

Myke Hurley: I mean, you didn't call the slate one, like, I don't know, blue gray.

Brad Dowdy: Gravelly pumice.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. Anyway, it's a fine product. It's $24. It's right on the money. Confident like you. Super pumped about the large size. I think it's a great format. I don't use that format, but I appreciate that format. I would use the large size way before the pocket size. I do prefer the softer, smaller notebooks for pocket size instead of heartbound pocket size.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, yeah. Good products. They keep churning it out. So, hopefully people keep buying it because I'd love to see them keep churning things out. So, we'll see. So, good stuff from Baron Fig.

Myke Hurley: I mean, let's just say it though, right? Like, you could say, like, I hope that, you know, I wish that they will keep churning out stuff. They're gonna. Right? There ain't nothing you can do to stop that train.

Baron Fig Trains

Myke Hurley: That train has definitely left the station. I just hope. They've become one of those math problems, right? Like, if two Baron Fig trains are hurtling towards each other at 200 miles an hour, which one's gonna reach the station first? Yeah. I kid because I love.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, we do. And I just, you know, we hope, and I don't think I'm speaking out of line here. We hope that there's some inventiveness in the future. Is that fair?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, we always do. It's what we say every time. I really like the confidence sizes. I think that's a good idea. I think it's a really, really solid idea. And that is a decision that's clearly been made from a company that understands their customers. I like that kind of thing. Like, I can see that. And I'm like, that, I really get that. I think, awesome. Good work. Like, that is a smart move. The sheath, it's a nice accessory, right?

Brad Dowdy: They have fleshed out their product line nearly completely. I can't think of what's missing at this point. They have all the things. They have, like, a notebook cover that they introduced last year that we've never talked about because it's just like the pin sheath. It's just, you know, a small piece of leather that wraps over your confidant, if you so wish.

Myke Hurley: These are accessories that are, like, for super fans.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So they've fleshed out the branding. And, like, now the hardcore nutjobs like us are like, okay, impress me next time. Right? Yeah. That's what I want to see. And maybe that's completely unfair, probably. I will definitely admit that. Because, like we always say, and you just said it, they know their business better than we do. So they're doing what's the best interest of, you know, the majority of their customers. So they make good stuff. So they'll keep going. So good job, Bear and Fig.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take a break?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Let's take a break. We have some super interesting follow-up. And then we have some Ask TPA to get to.

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Brad Dowdy: All right. So, I kind of kicked the hornet's nest unknowingly two weeks ago with my comments on Post-it notes, and they're all terrible. So, apparently, they're not all terrible, and people are very supportive of their favorite Post-it notes. Did you expect any feedback that we got on this topic? Not really.

Myke Hurley: It felt like a one and done, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, I love all the feedback that we got. They're like, wow, you are super wrong on this, and here's why. So, there were two top two products that stood out from several people. I know Myke from Ink Dependence. He was in the chat room earlier. I don't know if Myke is going to miss hearing his name in lights again. He said he'll come on the podcast and talk about his Post-it notes, but apparently, the Post-it super sticky notes are good with fountain pens. They're not the base level Post-it note or the generic junk you get from the office supply cabinet, but Post-it makes one called super sticky, and apparently, its paper works well with fountain pens. It got a lot of support from the Post-it note fans in the Slack channel. So, that's a thing if you're interested in. The second one that got a ton of play, which I had never heard of, was a product that, oh, now the link is not working, but Nanami Paper sells a high quality, ends high grade sticky notes. So, let me read one of these. Ends high grade. Okay. Yeah, I've got that one. Ends high grade. So, the link's working now. So, this is, let's see, Zach sent this one in.

Brad Dowdy: Brian sent this one in. I think Bruce Amon sent this one in. He might, I might actually be missing another one. There might be one from Midori. But anyway, Brian says, after you answered your question about fountain pens and sticky notes on the last podcast episode, I felt I should mention some great sticky notes sold over at Nanami Paper. They offer ends high grade sticky notes, which I've tried out before and could say work pretty well with many different types of inks. I wanted to pass these on. Zach says pretty much the same thing. Um, and this looks interesting. Like, I will generally vote for Japan when it comes to good stationery. And I will actually commit to trying these out and testing them out. They actually, they have comparison picks with the 3M notes with fountain pens. They look pretty nice. Some people, you know, have these and very much recommend them. So we'll see. It's just, you know, I just, it's never been a thing for me. Note cards have always been my thing because I've had such a bad experience. So maybe it's that I've been scorned one too many times with fountain pens and post-it notes, but these look interesting, Myke. I'm, I might can, can get behind this. So there's one last thing. If you want to roll your own post-it notes, this might come in handy with my note cards things. Uh, Chris wrote in that there's a glue stick by Scotch labeled as repositionable, restickable glue. It's not a post-it, but you can make, use the paper that you want, use that glue stick. That's not going to be sticky. It'll be a restickable glue stick, like a sticky note. Oh my God.

Myke Hurley: That could be a thing. How did, how is this like, how is this the thing that is just like passed me by in my life?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That could be highly useful.

Myke Hurley: Huh.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: That's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you can use your note cards like I do and just stick them somewhere with this glue stick and not have it leave a residue and be repositionable and restickable. That's kind of cool. I could get behind that, you know, cut up a bunch of rhodia pads if that's your thing, you know, and, uh, make your own sticky notes. So the, uh, the sticky note army was out in force after, uh, yeah, turns out after my admonishment last week, I was way wrong on that. And I think it's just because I'm scarred for life with bad, from bad sticky notes. They work really badly in my experience, but Hey, there's apparently some options out there. So we'll have to do a, we'll have to try it out. So, all right, you ready to, uh, dig into this as TPA?

Myke Hurley: Yes, sure.

Business Expansion

Brad Dowdy: So we have some, we have some businessy stuff in here to get to. We have some fun stuff to get into.

Myke Hurley: As a car led asked, how many projects are in line for knock this year? Looking at like new products, business expansion, maybe more retail stuff. What's on the horizon for your lovely little company?

Brad Dowdy: So I'm going to go with a lot. So that's the short answer. A lot is on the horizon. We have been running behind as we generally do, but just for different reasons, um, as always, but we're finally getting to a place where we can see the future and we're trying to map it out. So the first thing is the Lanier people were looking for a Lanier update. We should be receiving our first shipments of the Lanier in the next week or two, which means they should start shipping out mid to late April, and then they will continue to ship probably sometime into early March. It's going to just going to take a few weeks to get everything out. It's not going to be like a one big batch of, of processing because they're just large items, big boxes, lots of things going into that. There might be a chance we can deliver some at the Atlanta pen show. I don't want to guarantee that, but we'll see how delivery is going, um, on that. So the, the, the Lanier was a big project to get done. And it's on its last little bit here. And then those will be available from knock directly. Once the campaign is completely shipped. Yep. So along with that was our A5 sidebound notebook, which is our first sidebound notebook. I mean, it's, it's my product. So of course I'm going to rave about it, but I love this stinking notebook. It's the, it's a great size. I love our paper. Um, it's my favorite paper to use just on a normal for normal everyday use. And the A5 format is excellent. We'll have some of this first batch left over, I'm assuming. So we'll sell those till we sell out. We printed a special Kickstarter run. So everyone was able to order them through the Kickstarter. If we have extras, we'll sell them at pen shows and maybe online, depending on how many extras we have. And if that goes well, we'll produce a new run for those. But they were basically for the Kickstarter project. What we've been working on since winter 2016 are our notebook covers that everyone's been wanting us to make for years. You know, it started with like the Hobonichi A6 size. Um, then people want A5 size and A5 slim size, which is the traveler's notebook sizes. We're into the final stages of finalizing everything about that project. I think I'm confident enough at this point to say it's going to happen. Although I don't have final pricing yet, which I should have this week, but I've been through like four prototype phases. We've been testing these for months and months. And if all goes as planned, which in manufacturing is never a guarantee, we're looking at a fall release for A5 notebook cover cases, A6 notebook cover cases, and A5 slim notebook cover cases. That's going to be our huge release of the year. Completely new product line, completely new colors, completely new format. Um, this has been something people have been asking for for years, but the way our business runs, you know, it just takes a while to do those kinds of things. And we're finally at the point where it's time. So this is going to be a really cool release. Like I've been carrying the A5 slim traveler style for months and it's my favorite case that I'm carrying right now. I just use the heck out of that thing. Along with that, we're going to do a few styles that fit the A5 slim, um, which is your traveler's format. So a lot of people will use the traveler's inserts that they like. They're also from Keep A Notebook. There's lots of people that make traveler size inserts. We're going to do that as well. Um, we're going to make our dot grid pattern. Um, we're going to do a calendar pattern and then we'll probably do a blank pattern. Those are not finalized yet, so don't hold me to that.

Myke Hurley: Boy.

Brad Dowdy: Um, we're going big, Myke. This is a big project for us. It's taken a long time to come to fruition. Um, you know, I think my first A6 prototype that I've carried was like two years ago, you know, and it was slow and it never really fit in the schedule. And we had to get all these other things going for retail. And, you know, we had to, I mean, we're always planning for that next thing. We just never know when it's going to fit into the product pipeline. Yeah. Well, this year it's ready for the next step of the products for the bigger cases. Um, so yeah, that's going to be our big release for the year. The Lanier this spring, which was last fall's Kickstarter. And then for our larger notebook format covers to be our cases, I should say cases because they will all zip, which is a big thing with the traveler's notebook size. Like I wanted a zip case for that instead of just the leather flap. So, but you can use all your travelers inserts and things like that. So, I'd say give me about a month, kind of let me get through the Atlanta pen show, the shipping of the Lanier and the Chicago pen show. And then I'll start releasing pictures and the name and the size and the format. And you can learn more about them, but they will not be ready before. I don't see any way they're ready before September, October timeframe. Um, just because there's a lot to do. I mean, it takes a lot. But yeah, you know, it's a big, this is a big production for us. So, um, we're putting it on the line with these, but I mean, we love them. I'm, I, you know, like Jeff and I always talk about, we make things that we want to carry. So sometimes it takes work to tweak and finalize and everything. So it's going to be good. I am, Jeff and I are really excited about it. And it's just going to take some time to put the details, um, to finalize the details to where I'm able to just, like totally share like the pictures and, you know, all the formats and the new colors. Like we just picked colors like two days ago. So, um, you know, we have another final round of prototyping to do. I'm still waiting on the pricing, but we're far enough along to where we've put too much into it for it to not happen. It's definitely going to happen. So it's going to be a thing. So how's that for the, how's that for the answering the question? And I'm not even done. Like, like I'm not even near that gets us to the end of this year. Right. Yeah. Like, and then we're already planning for 2018 is already planning. Cause we have to, this is how we're running the business now. It's fun. Jeff and I are getting to design more and make less. Yep. Um, while we're keeping our quality and pricing the same and having it still made in the USA, it's, it's all lining up Myke to be really, really good. Really good. The, everything's been going very well so far. Um, we'll keep, you know, ramping up new products as the years go on. You know, we definitely want to get into bigger bags, you know, messengers and backpack size stuff. So that's, you know, years worth of work to put out a product that we're want to put the knock name on. So we take it seriously. You know, that's why, you know, people have been clamoring for these cases for years and it just takes time, you know, for us to do it right. We're just not going to throw something against the wall and see how it's, see if it sticks and then, you know, revisit it and redesign it, you know, every two or three months. Cause that's not how this business works for us. You know, we're going to hopefully put the time in upfront and do it right and then have a great product to sell to everyone after that. So yeah, that's awesome. We're, we're, we're excited. We're really, really pleased with how things are going right now. Yeah. So it's, it's crazy good. Crazy good.

Myke Hurley: Woo. I know. Yeah. Let me ask this question. Give you a couple of seconds. Yeah. Go for it. Michelle asks, are there any retailers who would tune a nib before shipping? Not custom tuning, just basic flow and consistency.

Brad Dowdy: So this is a great question. And I replied to Michelle on Twitter because I wanted to get a little bit of feedback from some of the companies that I thought did this. So the first one that came to mind is nibs.com, which is classic fountain pens, which is where I bought a couple of Nakaias from. And they don't have every pen brand. Like Michelle was worried about buying a Kaweco and having a bum nib, which is a thing. That's one of Kaweco's kind of gotchas. There's sometimes have nibs with baby's bottoms and they don't do super, super well with that. But so classic fountain pens does. They basically have a section on the form when you order. Tell me how you like to write. What do you want done to the nib? And they'll test everything. Get it all set for you before you go. So I thought Goulet pens might. And I know they can't do that for every nib, but I was thinking that they did on a special request. If you had that question, they would do it. But I understand that it's just kind of like they're shipping way too many things. But they won't make adjustments, but I think they will test it to be sure if you ask kind of thing. But I think their volume is just so high, like that would be, that would take up a lot of time.

Brad Dowdy: So if you're looking to purchase like, you know, retail brands like Kaweco as opposed to manufactured brands like Edison or Franklin Kristoff, those are always going to be tuned and tweaked before they leave the door just because that's built into their process. It's built into their pricing. If you're looking to buy something like Lamy, Kaweco, even Pelican, maybe from anyone, they're probably not. I mean, I know a lot of pens will test them from the factory. Like I've gotten Pilot pens with like blue ink, like a faint hint of blue ink because they will test them before they go, which is maybe why I've never had a problem with a Pilot nib out the gate. So the best thing you can do is ask and ask if they will test it for you. Some will, some won't. It's just kind of, you know, no guarantee unless you're going to nibs.com where it's part of their service that they offer. So that's a really good question because you always want to get, we talk about it, how, you know, sometimes you get nibs that, you know, aren't the best or out of alignment. And, you know, it just happens with some companies. Is there a way to avoid that? I think you're just going to have to email who you're dealing with on a regular basis and see if they will do that for you. So there's that. It's a tough thing. That's also good why you can go to a pen show and test them out ahead of time if you're able to get to one. That's another feature.

Myke Hurley: I've fallen down the nibs.com, the Kaya hole.

Brad Dowdy: That's a bad place to be, dude.

Myke Hurley: I'm close to having the money together. I know. I know. I'm not far off now. I've been saving.

Brad Dowdy: I fell down an eBay rabbit hole last week on vintage pens, but I didn't last long. I was like, nope, that's a mistake. Like that stuff needs to be bought in person online and, you know, talk with the person who's selling a pen. I could buy in the Kaya in person. Yeah, that's a tough thing. That's a tough thing. I understand that. I understand that. I love this next question.

Myke Hurley: What's the story behind the pen addict logo, asked James.

Brad Dowdy: The story goes as this.

Brad Dowdy: There's no story.

Brad Dowdy: It's our friend, Myke's good friend, Forgotten Towel, Frank. Myke went to him. The original. Okay, here's a good story. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: What's the original? What was the original logo? I don't even remember it now.

Brad Dowdy: So, you don't remember this? No. Because this is an amazing. This is where the story's at, Myke. Because someone really famous did our original logo.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you're thinking about the podcast logo, right? Like, I'm just thinking about your logo. Oh, no.

Brad Dowdy: Like, I don't remember your original logo.

Myke Hurley: I remember our original logo.

Brad Dowdy: My current logo came from the podcast art. Yep. So, that's from a gentleman named Frank, Forgotten Towel, online. Yep. Who said, we need a logo for the pen addict. Frank said, okay, let me think about it. He sends an email with the logo. And we both go, oh, my God, we're done. Like, there was no, Myke and I had no input behind that. And I said, can I use it for the blog? Because it's kind of amazing. And that's how the logo began. There was no, there was, I had zero input on that logo. Other than probably the color. Like, we said, well, let's make it the orange of the pen addict thing. Whatever we're going to do. And then Frank goes, how about this? There wasn't even, like, a choice. There wasn't, there weren't, like, five choices. And we picked this one. He goes, how about this? And we go, yep.

Podcast Logo

Brad Dowdy: That's how the best stuff happens. And the logo's been amazing. But I do want to tell the story of the original podcast logo.

Myke Hurley: I think you should.

Brad Dowdy: Our good friend and former 70 Decibels stablemate, Aaron Mankey, was, at one time, had a graphic design business on the side. Yep. And so, he was in charge. He was our Frank back then, right? Yeah. He did all the logos for all the shows for 70 Decibels.

Myke Hurley: Including the 70 Decibels logo itself. I'm currently, I'm actually wearing my 70 Decibels t-shirt today.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. That's one of my all-time favorite logos. The 70 Decibels one.

Myke Hurley: For anybody that doesn't know, 70 Decibels was the name of my very first podcast network.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, Aaron Mankey has gone on to become a podcast superstar. One of the most popular podcasts in the world, like, flat out. He is. He, so, if you're not familiar with the name, you may have listened to his podcast. It's called Lore, which I absolutely adore. I think it's fantastic. And Aaron deserves, like, every ounce of fame that is coming with us. He's turned, this is, like, a top 10 all-time podcast, like, in Apple's rankings. Yep. Like, millions of listeners a week. This has been parlayed into a TV show that drops this fall. A book deal. On Amazon. A book deal. He does tours. He does a speaking tour. Yeah. Or a show tour, I guess you should say. Yep. So, this is a guy we know very, very well. And we're super proud of him. It's him when he's done. And it's just him. It's amazing. Yep. It really is incredible. It's amazing. And I talk to him about it from time to time. You know, he was at our first knock party. Yep. And we found some pictures of him the other day. Him and our other good friend, Bradley Chambers. Because me and Aaron would get together every spring before the pen show. Because he was coming down to visit his in-laws. So, we'd go to breakfast. Or we went to his house to record a podcast one time. So, yeah. The original, I don't know what you call it. The bubbly, polka-dottie thing. It was a real cool logo. But the new logo, I think, is what James was asking about.

Myke Hurley: I think the original was like, it was meant to look like a letterpress.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Gotcha. And it came out good. Beautiful. That was a good logo. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Now, the current one is Frank's work.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And Frank is awesome. Like, you just give words to Frank and then they come back with magic.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Everything you see, everything you can see of RelayFM is him. Yep. If you can see it, he made it. Yep. T-shirts, everything. The whole shebang, he does everything.

Brad Dowdy: He does great work. Great work. So, yeah. So, the story behind the logo is there's no story. It just came out of Frank's head and we loved it. And then I abducted it for everything pen addict because it's so good. All right. Next one. We've kind of talked about this a little bit. Why don't you read this out for me and then I'll collect my thoughts because it's a good question.

Pen Community Products

Myke Hurley: This goes from Paper Late. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on products which come from people within the pen community. We've recent examples such as Knox Lanier, Anna's Coloring, and Squishy Ink's Hipponoto as compared to the ability of larger faceless companies to introduce similar products. I cannot imagine people getting as excited about pen cases from Samsonite or another notebook from Rodia, which is owned by Solveig, one of the largest chemical companies in the world. How important is this artisanal aspect to our pen community?

Brad Dowdy: So, I think Scott kind of knows the answer to this one asking it because I think it's kind of obvious, but it's definitely worth saying. You know, and he hit on it and the question.

Brad Dowdy: We're not faceless. We're part of the community. You get to understand where we're coming from, why we're doing the things that we do, why it's important to us that we do it. You know, you get to hear like in last week's episode how everything that Anna went through just to come up with a paper for her product. That was a process. You know, I just talked about how hard it is or how long the process is for us to make a single pen case. Like, you know, I could go to Jeff tomorrow and come up with a pen case and put it for sale on the shop, you know, brand new design. But that's not the right thing to do for our business. You know, we want you. We want to give you the nuts and bolts so you, you know, understand where we're coming from, understand the decisions we make. And then you can make you have all the information to make that purchasing decision. Now, that doesn't mean I don't go out and buy a rhodiopad because I like rhodiopads. It means that other products, I want to support the people that are part of the community as well, because that makes the community as a whole thrive. Like, the things we've seen change over these 251 episodes have, I don't think anyone could have predicted this five years ago. That we'd have people making pen cases and people making notebooks with special paper and people manufacturing pens from different metals that fit the favorite refills that we want to make. And you've got to learn these stories as these things goes on, you know, as time goes on. And you've gotten to learn the good. You've gotten to learn the bad. You've gotten to be part of the ride of all of this. And I think that's important to the community that you have people that really, really care about the community and about the products that they make. And that just makes it easy for people to support those types of makers. You know, none of us are ever going to be rhodia. You know, we're not going to be owned by multinational corporations, but we're going to keep supporting and building and believing in a community of like-minded individuals who believe in cheering each other on and propping each other up and supporting each other. Like, I want to talk about, like, I am, I do this for my living. I make my living off of pens and papers and pen cases, but I want to support everyone else who makes pens and paper and pen cases as well because it's healthy for the community, right? I'm not a person that's going to knock down someone else who's doing something similar time to what I'm doing. That's not healthy. It's not good for the community because you want these people to succeed. You want to understand why they believe in the community like you believe in the community and I believe in the community. So it's a big deal to me to help shine the light on other makers in the community because of all the reasons, you know, that Scott's talking about. You know, it's, it's, it's really, really cool to see someone have an idea, have a strong belief in a product, put in the time and effort to make it the best they can be and have the nerve. And I say that in the positive way because it's nerve wracking, have the nerve to say, Hey, will you check out my product and consider buying it? That's a big deal.

Myke Hurley: A story that a lot of people can, can better associate with than like, here is the new product in our mammoth product line. And I think that a lot of people, not everybody, but a lot of people like to hear those sorts of stories. And as well, like if you're, if you're in a niche market and you're making a niche product, if you are a customer of that, you'd like to know that the person who's designing the product uses that stuff. Right. Right. Because then, you know, it's likely to fit the specific needs that you feel you have. And I think that's why a lot of these products sell well and all people get excited about them because it's like this product's made for me where, where I don't think that a big, big company is able to pull that off as well. Because, because of the size of their audiences, they have to like, they have to make things a little bit more broadly. And I think that's why the, the small artisanal handcrafted people will continue to thrive in this market.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And it's, you know, the internet and social media has definitely helped with that. We wouldn't, we wouldn't get a shot like we today, like, you know, in the, in the old days, we wouldn't have. The, the playing field has been leveled to a degree to allow people with ideas in their head to make something of that. And it's pretty cool to be part of a community that supports all kinds of makers from, you know, all around the world. And it's just, it's just awesome. Love it. Absolutely love being part of this community. And it's just fantastic every day.

Myke Hurley: Last question today comes from Stacey Bean. Hi all. I believe that I heard Matt Armstrong state that he wouldn't sick Luke the dog on a person heading up his walk, wielding a ballpoint. Because stationary geeks are my people. My question is, how do we get this way? Vampires, they were bitten by a vampire. Is this type of thing genetic? I thought I was exclusively a fountain pen user and now I own rollerballs and pencils. Fountain pens were a gateway drug. Who knew?

Brad Dowdy: So, I put this in here.

Myke Hurley: I struggle to follow a lot of this question, honestly, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not going to lie. I, I put it in for a reason. Because I got a tweet yesterday that summed up everything that, that this question is about. So, the tweet came from a gentleman named Ashraf. And he says, I think I'm becoming Dowdy-ism. My favorite pen is the pen I'm using right now. And there is so much truth in that comment. And I think Stacy is discovering that now. Where she started with fountain pens and, you know, shunned the rollerballs and gel pens and pencils. Kind of like we, at the beginning of this show, five years ago, kind of, we didn't shun fountain pens. But we didn't get it. Like, I'm good with my micro-tip gel ink pen. But now, this whole world has opened up. And I say it all the time how much I love a $3 pen as much as a $300 fountain pen. You know, it's what I'm using now. I get so much enjoyment out of every little thing in the stationary world. That the smallest little thing can give me the most enjoyment in the world. And how did we get this way? You know, it's, I don't know what the common gene is that links us all. But we're all the same way. We can find, like, the awesomeness in the smallest little stationary item. Or the biggest, most expensive stationary item. And just have fun with it. And just, I keep a Bic crystal in my desk. Because I love that pen. And sometimes I just pick it up and write with it. Because it's fantastic. And it's like a 50-cent pen. And it's amazing. Sometimes I pick up a $700 Nakaya and go, Ooh, boy, this thing writes awesome. I love this pen. This is my favorite pen. And then I'll go and grab a pencil that costs a dollar. And I was like, man, this pen just, this pencil just gets me. It's like the right smoothness and firmness and darkness. And I love this pencil. So, it's cool. Like, we, you know, it's definitely an addictive sickness that we all have. But in the best way possible. So, yeah. I don't know if I answered the question. But I just thought it related to this tweet I got. Saying my favorite pen is the pen I'm using right now. And that's all you need to know.

Myke Hurley: So, that wraps it up for this week's episode, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find our show notes for today, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 251. Thanks to Squarespace for supporting the show. If you want to find Brad online, he's at penaddict.com. He's at dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. I am imike. I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks so much for listening. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.