The Pen Addict 208/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	208
Title:	The Queen’s Filofax
Release Date:	June 8th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Adam Blaine
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 208
Audio File:	Audio Episode 208
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 208
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 208. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by the one and only Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Michael?

Myke Hurley: Nothing, my friend. It's a good day today, getting ready to go to San Francisco later in the week for WWDC. So, I've got a lot going on, but I'm excited and we've got a good show today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we do have a good show today. We have another countryman of yours, Mr. Adam Blaine from the Desk of Adam. How are you, Adam?

Adam Blaine: I'm good, thank you. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. Welcome aboard. I'm excited to get you on. I've talked to you online for a couple years now and followed the Desk of Adam. So, we're going to find out all about that today.

Adam Blaine: Okie dokes.

Myke Hurley

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. I hope you're ready. I hope you're ready for us. I hope you're at least ready for Myke. He's kind of rude sometimes, so we'll have to bring him in.

Adam Blaine: I'm kind of terrible. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. But one thing before we go, Myke, you're heading to WWDC next week.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And you will have a special package that is being hand-delivered to you next week, so I will leave it at that.

Myke Hurley: Uh... What?

Brad Dowdy: What are you doing? What have you done? That's all you need to know. It's nothing I need to... You'll probably know everything in the envelope when it arrives. But just be forewarned that you will be having something a little special for you.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Plus, it saves me shipping. You guys, you and Adam are so far away. Man, that shipping will get us. And then you have to pay customs on top of it. So, y'all system is bonkers.

Adam Blaine: Oh, I am aware of it. Yeah. Yeah. Customs fees are the bane of my existence.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I hate that. You know, we talk about it. We curse about that all the time. And I actually feel bad when I send stuff over there. Then people have to pay extra. It's just like, oh, that's just a brutal, brutal, brutal system. But that's okay. We'll talk about all the good stuff that the Brits have going on. So, Adam, I want to start at the very beginning. How did the desk of Adam start?

Adam Blaine: Well, it's a long story. That's good. But the short version is I used to post on Instagram about paper planners because there's a huge community online for filofaxes. And I got into that at some point in the last few years. And then that slowly expanded into just looking at stationery on Instagram. And then one day I came across the pen addict podcast randomly. I can't remember how. It just popped up and I started listening. And then that kind of opened me into the world of like the fountain pen communities and the pen communities online as well. And then I started a Squarespace trial from the podcast just to play around with it and see what it was all about. I mainly did it just to play with the trial and just to mess about with all the features and stuff. And I was like, this looks cool. Let's just stick with it and try it. And it's just been the desk of Adam since.

Brad Dowdy: So have you always like shared things online before like saying, hey, I'm going to write this stationery blog now. I'm going to put all this stuff out there and do reviews and talk about the things I like. Did you have any kind of, were you online sharing things, you know, otherwise before? Did you have any like earlier blogs or is this kind of like the first foray into it?

Adam Blaine: No, this was the first thing that I tried with a blog with writing. I never really enjoyed writing from school. They always tried to teach me how to like to write in their style. So I never really enjoyed writing at all until I started writing the desk of Adam. And it kind of, I kind of taught myself how to write again and have a writing style. And then I just carried on with it. It stuck and I still enjoy it a couple of years on.

Myke Hurley: Considering you hadn't done anything like this before, why do you think this specific topic stuck with you, you know, in a way that maybe you hadn't anticipated?

Adam Blaine: Well, I've always been in love with stationery since a very young age. And I kind of lost that after leaving school because I just didn't have a use for it. So I didn't, you know, look into using awesome stationery. And then having a blog about stationery was perfect because it gave me an excuse to use everything and get more and try out some awesome things. And then the community online, the stationery community in particular, is just really, really awesome and supportive. So I kind of stuck with that.

Brad Dowdy: Now, I noticed like the name you, if you dig back a little bit in like, you know, some of your first post or some of your, you know, initial feeds and stuff, your name was Adams Philo. So like the Philofax continues to blow my mind. I have never used one, but that community is massive. And that's obviously what you, what kind of drug you in. That was kind of like the entry point for you, right? So like, what's the deal about with Philofaxes and, you know, how did it, it just seems really, really much more ingrained in, in the UK than in the US. Like people coming up through school, just like live for their Philofaxes. It seems like all the, the Brits I talked to really just are knee deep into Philofax, at least to begin with.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. Well, in school, we was always given paper planners to track everything. And it kind of stemmed from that. I always used some sort of paper planner. I just couldn't put everything on tech. I always had to have something that I could write everything down in. And then when I just came across on Instagram, people posting their Philofaxes, I thought this looks cool. Let's join in with that. So I started with Adam's Philo because it was just an Instagram for me to post about a Philofaxe, which when you actually think about it on the, on the surface, just is the geekiest thing to do. Having Instagram just for a Philofaxe. And then I discovered all the other communities just off of Instagram about a Philofaxe's huge groups on Facebook. People were doing videos on YouTube. So I thought I'd join in with that. I carried the name across Adam's Philo onto YouTube as well. And then it just slowly expanded when I started the blog. And I wanted to include more general stationary instead of just a Philofax. So I kind of ditched the name Adam's Philo a while back and just kept posting on the desk of Adam.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Myke, you used a Philofaxe, right? When I asked you this before, you said you did use it when you were a student.

Myke Hurley: Well, see, this is the thing, right? If you are in the UK and you like stationary, you will have had a history with Philofaxe. Right. I don't know why, but there are a really big brand here for that stuff, right? It feels like anybody that is interested in this type of thing will end up, get down the Philofaxe rabbit hole. And I think partly it's because as kids, as I mentioned when we had Tesseron, that they have the kids' versions. So it's embedded in us from a young age, right? That this is a thing that you should do. This is a thing that you'll enjoy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that was never a part of our schooling growing up. If I wanted a planner, it would just be something I would pick up on my own. When I was at the office supply store buying my school supply list, if I wanted a planner, it was either Daytimer was popular, a little bit of Franklin Covey. But that's it. But Daytimer and Dayrunner, they're all similar type of systems. But Philofaxe, it just seems to be like it's it's the generic name now. Right. You know, it's the it's the Kleenex or Xerox. You know, it's Philofaxe. It's just the thing. And I'm starting to see. It's always been a huge community, but I'm seeing it pop up even more and more now. And a lot more retailers are carrying like the Philofaxe, you know, all set up because it's a it's like a knee deep thing. Right. It's a huge depth of a system. Right. It's not just a it's not a notebook cover. Right. It's a whole deal.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, at its core, it's like a fancy diary. But you can. What makes it a system is all the additions that they sell for it. It's kind of a very basic level reminds me of the Hobonichi because there are a bunch of accessories that you can get and all that for Philofaxe. And like, you know, like how you have with like the techos, you can get like the rulers and stuff to put in them. It's very much like that. Mm hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I just find that interesting that I can tell that's how like Adam got started with it with his Adam's Philo name. I thought that was cool. And then like so the blog started in 2014, right? Yes. Like two, two and a half years ago. Yeah. So, you know, you've been I've been following you. You know, I love your posts. I love your style. And then like it seemed to like escalate quickly into now. You're the blogger of the year for 2016. Do I have this correct?

Adam Blaine: Yeah, that was a little bit crazy.

National Stationery Week

Brad Dowdy: Let me set this up a little bit. So in London, like we've talked about, they have National Stationery Week and they do, you know, a bunch of big promotions. They have the company behind it does great marketing, great PR. And every year they they pick out like a blogger of the year. And this year it was the desk of Adam. So congratulations, number one. Yeah, man. Thank you. Number two, you're like on the knighthood checklist. You're now ahead of Myke. So you at least have this on your on your checklist. So you're ahead of Myke. Myke just is a podcaster. You're actually officially a blogger of the year. So you're closer to knighthood than Myke.

Myke Hurley: So I really don't think you understand how knighthoods work.

Myke Hurley: There's not a checklist? No, there's not a checklist.

Brad Dowdy: No, there's not points based.

Myke Hurley: No, I'm afraid not.

Adam Blaine: The queen doesn't have a file of facts for this.

Brad Dowdy: I bet she does. I bet she does. So, well, I mean, in my book, Adam's definitely ahead of you, Myke. So tell us how did this happen? Was this a surprise? Do you like? I think it's really cool.

London Stationery Show

Adam Blaine: Well, it all happened really quickly. It's the first year they've done a blogger category, actually, because they do the London Stationery Show, which is primarily a business trade show. They have an industry award to go with it for products and categories within stationery. And then this year, the PR company who's running the show, in an effort to include bloggers more into the whole stationery industry, included a blogger category, which was vote based. So I got the email from the PR company saying I'm included, which was crazy to start with. And then they had the public vote, which was up for a couple of weeks, I think. And then I was heading down to the London Stationery Show anyway, just as I did last year. I met up with Tessa last year as well. And then I found out there was there was actually like giving the award on a stage in front of all the industry people who were going, which was a bit daunting. It was it was fun. And it's still a little surreal that people voted for me. But I definitely appreciate it.

Brad Dowdy: So you posted the I will put a link in the show notes to all these links. But there's a trophy that you got. I'm sure that's displayed prominently. Right. I mean, you you kneel before it every night, I'm sure.

Adam Blaine: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And you did a video of it. Your YouTube videos are great, which we're going to talk about that in a minute.

Brad Dowdy: But so what's the London Stationery Show like for you? So this is this is becoming like an annual event. And you were the did you say this was the first ever the blog? This is the first time they picked the blogger of the year. So you're the first ever.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. The the regular industry awards are judged by a panel like brands and stores submit their items, I guess, and then judged on a panel and they win awards that way. And then this year they introduced the blogger category, which was the only one up for a public vote.

Brad Dowdy: So how many how many other bloggers were you up against?

Adam Blaine: I think there was 10 in total. A lot of them, though, were parenting blogs because I guess they're trying to the PR companies trying to reach children. That's the whole campaign of National Stationery Week is to get children writing. They're trying to really hammer it into kids that you should be writing as well as using tech so that that's not lost, because I feel like it definitely has been in the last few years. So a lot of them were parenting categories, parenting blogs, sorry, that were included in the awards. There was some stationery blogs that definitely should have been included that I was surprised weren't, definitely like Tessa and Ian.

Adam Blaine: But that's how they decided to run it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I guess they figure that, you know, they'll just keep you all in line for like the next couple of years because, you know, when they announced the list, you know, it's up to a public vote. And, you know, maybe we can every year we can we can move the needle a little bit. Right, Myke? And, you know, we'll find out who it is like we we didn't do that this year because you just dominated everybody. It was an easy win for you. But next year, if, you know, Tessa or Ian or anyone else, you know, that we follow Myke, we can we can get the word out and see what those numbers look like. We'll probably get in trouble.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it might be a bit tougher that time. I want to know why there's no podcast. Right.

Myke Hurley: Maybe that's what you need to fix that. And we can we can walk in and we can clear up me and you. That's right.

Brad Dowdy: Well, cool. So this National Stationery week that they do is that that's kind of that's kind of a big deal. And do you see this continuing on? Do you see yourself attending attending the trade show every year? That's kind of like that's kind of a thing over there now. Right.

Adam Blaine: Yeah, I'd like to keep going. I went for the first time last year, which was really daunting because it was kind of the first ever thing I'd gone to for the blog. And it was still kind of unknown to the brands about the whole online communities.

Adam Blaine: That's so strange. It was really weird last day. Yeah. Yeah. It's bizarre because it's such an awesome platform for brands. I mean, if you get in touch with a blogger as a brand and send them products that can be, you know, great advertising. And they don't they just don't tap into that. This year I saw a lot more brands recognize blogs more like they understood it from just saying, oh, this is my blog. And they understood it rather than having to explain what a stationary blog is every single time. But it's still a bit bizarre kind of talking to people and networking about a stationary blog, which is something I really need to work on. I think.

Brad Dowdy: It's hard to say out loud, like even if you're among your peers, like you're in that you're in an area where people are selling stationary. But then someone asks you a question. It's hard to translate. Hey, I write the pen addict in words and this is what it's about. It's like, yeah, there's no clear way to do that. You know, you don't say I make this widget. Here's my widget. You know, you're having to explain that it's not just a blog. You know, there's this social aspect. There's this community aspect. And, you know, how all this stuff comes about. And like, I imagine that that's even hard for you, Myke, saying, you know, I run a podcast network. Like, it's hard to have these conversations outside of your head with people who have no idea.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Podcasting is like a whole other level. Because people. So you're better. Are you better than us? I'm just saying that people don't understand the term blogging and writing. People can get their head around. But yes, the stuff that I do, like this part, so many people. Or even if they've heard of the term. It's like, imagine what it was like maybe seven or eight years ago to say that you made like a living or you made money writing online. You know, that's the kind of raised eyebrows that I get from people.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That internet radio thing, Myke, there might be something to it.

Myke Hurley: It's going to take off.

Pen Chalet

Brad Dowdy: All right. So let's talk about one of our sponsors that has taken off. And that's our good friends at Pen Chalet.

Myke Hurley: Oh, Pen Chalet. Do we love Pen Chalet? You know the Pen Chalet. They're the first place that you should be going if you have any type of stationary good that you're looking for. Because they have so many of your favorite brands like Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco, and many more. And not only do they offer fantastic pens, roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils. They also offer a bunch of other accessories like carrying cases and refills and fountain pen converters. They even do some inks. So you can find everything that you're looking for over at Pen Chalet. They have free shipping on orders of $50. And they also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates too. So you know that Pen Chalet by now, they do fantastic deals. And we have another fantastic deal for you this week. Go to PenChalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password, PenAddict, when it gives you the ability to enter the password. And you will be able to see this week's special offer as well as getting the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. And that special offer this week, we have a double whammy this week. We have the Platinum, I'm going to say Plazier, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's pretty close enough. Plazier. Yeah, that's what I said.

Myke Hurley: We have the Platinum Plazier fountain pen in both the frosty blue and gunmetal color. The blue has a fine nib. The gunmetal has a medium nib. You'll be able to get this thing for 30% off plus the 10% coupon that you enter at checkout. And that will bring the total of this price down to $13.86, which is crazy making. That's so cheap. This is a great starter pen. You can swap the nibs from the Plazier with the Preppy as well. So if you kind of, you know, you know someone who's just getting involved or you just want to get your hand on a pretty decent nib for a really cheap price, this is the way to go.

Brad Dowdy: So this is a timely offer from Penn Chalet because I got an email this week about the Pelican M205 that I reviewed this week and I was bragging on the steel nibs, Pelican steel nibs. I was saying Pelican steel nibs are better than gold. They're gold nibs right out the box. And the email I got was, well, how do Sailors, Pilots, and Platinum steel nibs compare to the Pelican? Do they have that same awesome qualities about them? And I said, the Sailors don't. I've been very hit or miss with Sailor steel nibs, but the Pilot and Platinum steel nibs are wonderful. I've never had a bad experience with a Pilot or Platinum steel nib. And these Platinums, if you like a fine nib, man, these are wonderfully, wonderfully sharp, fine lines. So this is a great pen. I love it.

Myke Hurley: And also, as well as these fantastic pens, you can get your hands on a Clairefontaine 1951 Red Coral notebook for 25% off as well. So you can get a whole little kit there if you're looking for it. So go to PennChalet.com, hit that link at the top, use the Pen Addict password. You'll be able to get access to all of this. Penn Chalet has lower prices on high-quality pens with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Thank you so much to Penn Chalet for their continued support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Adam. So I'm going to kind of start, you know, we talked about how the blog got started. I'm going to talk about some of the products that you started off with when you were kind of getting into this. So like you did a series towards the beginning called My Fountain Pen Journey. So tell us about like why did you write that series and what are some of the pens and papers and inks that kind of you went, you know, you presented out first and that you really enjoyed and that, you know, got you started writing this blog?

Adam Blaine: Well, I wrote it because I needed something to write about and that just seemed like a logical thing for me to do just to talk about how I got back into fountain pens. I started with Lamis just because of the price because they were really cheap to get. I think I started my first one was a Vista.

Myke Hurley: Lamis is super available in the UK. Like they're everywhere.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. Yeah. Really easy to get a hold of. So I picked one of those up just to try it and it stuck. So I picked a few more up with some of the more expensive pens that I got. I already had I was in touch with Filofax for the YouTube channel because a lot of the videos I was posting was about Filofax and Filofax's parent company also has Yarder Lead, which is a fountain pen brand. Ah. And they sent me over a bunch of their inks and one of their pens, which is kind of what got me into it more hardcore, I guess you could say. So I was slowly working my way through those. And then I did that, the fountain pen journey, just to kind of go over the sort of progression that I had getting back into them.

Brad Dowdy: What were you using before? Like what were your kind of go to pens before you started getting, you know, dabbling in the Lamy's and getting into a few other things?

Adam Blaine: Before I did fountain pens, I was just using a Fisher space pen that I'd had since I was in school. Just one of the silver bullet space pens. That is all I would use all the time.

Adam Blaine: Literally the one pen I would carry.

Brad Dowdy: That's a pretty awesome choice.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. And I see like 20 pens that I'm carrying in one day and I look back and I'm like, it was so much simpler then.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going through that right now. I have my ups and downs where some days I'm happy to carry three pens and some days I'm happy to carry 20 pens. And then a week later I'm going, what are you doing? This is dumb. Yeah. So I go through that back and forth. But man, the Fisher space pen is a pretty good option there. You talked about Yard of Lead and I haven't looked. Have you reviewed some of their fountain pens? Because I haven't. And some of their pens are, I think their designs are stunning. Actually, they're so kind of different comparatively to other pen manufacturers. And, you know, they've been around for a long time. They're kind of a historical brand and been around and, you know, making mechanical pencils and things like that. But their designs are wonderful.

Adam Blaine: Yeah, they're really quite classic. I've reviewed one of their pens. It was the Retro Fountain Pen, which is a black pen that's really quite nice. I don't use it a lot because it is such a, it's such like, it's just fancy. That's all I can say. It's a fancy pen. But yeah, the quality is really great. I did a post as well on all of the inks that they had at the time. I don't know if they still do new inks or anything, but they had six colors at the time, which I did a post on as well. How are their inks? I haven't used them. They're good. They're not, you know, I wouldn't use them all the time. They're not special in any way. They're just great standard inks. Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Yeah. They're not like, they don't have like the product lineup like Diamine or something has where you have that huge range of colors. And it's just more your standard basics like you'd get from, you know, just like a Schaefer or Waterman, something like that.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. Yeah.

Pen Addict Article

Brad Dowdy: So in this, in this fountain pen journey series, my favorite article is part three because you talk about the pen addict. And yeah, I love this, Myke. If you, if you open up this article, I'm sure you have our artwork. Our artwork was done by a famous person now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Isn't that funny? I saw this, Adam, when you pulled this up. I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot about this artwork that Adam has linked in here. And it's now, that artwork was done by our good friend, Aaron Mankey, who has become, I like to call him Hollywood a little bit, huh? He's got, he's.

Myke Hurley: Aaron, he produces a podcast called Law, which is an absolute phenomenon. It's listened to by millions of people, I think. And it's being turned into a TV show.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, uh, Mr. Hollywood Mankey is, uh, going back and forth, uh, to California working on this show. And I think there's a few networks bidding over it. And, uh, it's like a whole deal. And, uh, we can, we can say we knew Aaron back then, right, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We knew him. We knew him before he got famous. He kickstarted his career. Yeah. We, yeah, we'll go with that actually. Yeah. We'll go with that. Yeah. I got him into the podcasting game.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that, uh, I think we need a cut.

Myke Hurley: I would completely agree with you. We should talk to him. I'm sure he'd be very willing to give us a cut. At least to produce a credit. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So in this post, like your, your Safari, your Safari love has expanded like rapidly. There's what? Four Safaris. Uh, no, five, uh, four Safaris, two Vistas and AL Sports and, uh, Twisby Mini. So like, did you, did this escalate quickly, like on your desk at home? Like, were you saying, oh, I really enjoy this. Okay. So what, what was, what was that like? How did, how did you go from one Lamy to like eight in the, in a pretty quick, pretty quick run? I guess that was our fault a little bit.

Adam Blaine: It may be a little bit. Yeah. I was starting to look into them and, um, noticed all the old limited editions they did. And that, that was it. I was gone. Um, and I went on a hunt for the, uh, turquoise, uh, no aquamarine, uh, it's called. Um, yes. Yes. And I was hunting for that for months and months cause it was quite old at the time. Um, and I managed to find one and kind of in the process of finding that I was like, oh, well this is a blue. So I'll pick that up. It's just as good for now. So I got a blue one and I got a white one and then a red one randomly. Um, and I just, you know, they kind of, they kind of piled up. I was, I, my train of thought was they're not that expensive. Let's just get another one. Um, and now I have all of these pens. That is exactly how it happens.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. That sounds awfully familiar. And the one, I love the Safari Safari is still one of my favorite pens. Um, yeah. And I never got the aquamarine. I do. I don't really like actively hunt down, but I always wanted the, the blue with the red clip. Um, some call it the Smurf one. I don't know the official name of it, but, um, I, I got that one. That was kind of the one I really wanted. And then I have a couple of the other ones, like a, there's a gray, a gray with a black clip. Um, that's, that's really cool.

Adam Blaine: Ed Jelly got a gray one for a really cheap price at a pen show. And I remember him posting about it on Instagram and I was so jealous.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One of my, uh, other blogging friends, uh, I believe Paul at, uh, gorgeous.inc picked up the one I don't have that I want is the orange one with the red clip and they go for about a hundred dollars. If you can find someone selling one. And I think he picked one up for like 20 or $30. I was like, wow. I was like, that's, that's the one I want. So I've, I've probably got, you know, 10 safaris just laying around that I don't use. But now my wife is actually getting into fountain pens, which this, you know, I've been doing the blog for eight and a half years now. She's just turned that corner and she saw the Lamy dark lilac safari. She's like, I want that one. And I wouldn't, I only had one of them and I wouldn't give her mine. So I had to order her one. I mean, cause I had the extra fine nib in mine. So I knew she wouldn't really like it. At least that was my excuse. But the safari man, that's a gateway drug pen. It looks so cool. It writes well, you know, it was forever until the pilot metropolitan came out. That was the pen I'd recommend for people to buy first. But I mean, the metropolitan is, is a step above that. And as far as like a pure beginner pen, but the Lamy safari is just like, you know, the M&Ms or Skittles that you can't, uh, you can't just stop with one. And, uh, funnily enough, we're going to talk about candy later. So, uh, that was, that was kind of good of me. Yeah. So, um, what are you using now that, you know, in, in the fountain pens, like you are, the safari still like heavy in your rotation or you moved on to some other things.

Adam Blaine: I pretty much always have the, uh, aquamarine inked up. That's like sort of the standard that I'll always use that. I just love the color of it because it was such a difficult thing to get a hold of. Um, so I just always use that.

Brad Dowdy: Um, do you keep the same ink in it?

Adam Blaine: Um, I usually go through a couple of different turquoises just to, I kind of like to match the barrel color to the ink inside. Yeah, me too. And then I always have my, um, vanishing point inked up. Um, just cause I always have a black at some point, uh, a black ink in one pen that I'm using. So I would normally have that in the, um, the vanishing point. Um, and then, cause I try to not carry more than two at a time right now, just because then I find it too overwhelming and I'm like, I spend so much time picking which pen to use that it's just not worth it. Um, but if I do have a third, the one I've got at the minute is the TWSBI, uh, 580 AL in blue. Yeah. Um, I was waiting on that to be released for a long time. They teased that like a year before it was actually released. So I was like, I didn't want to buy anything until I got that. Um, so I was holding off for a while for that one.

Brad Dowdy: So you're like the anti Myke. Um, Myke's not a fan of the Lamy Safari or the vanishing point.

Myke Hurley: No, no, no. I love the Safari. Vanishing point. No. Were you checking if I was listening or something there? Don't try and throw that on me.

Brad Dowdy: I just like to pick on you. That's one of my favorite things to do because it's just because I love you. But no, I, I know you like the, like the Safari. The Safari was one of your gateway pens too. Yep. So now you take all these, these pens and you know, you have this one. And one of the things I've noticed is that your photography is wonderful. Um, and when you scroll, scroll, scroll through something like your Instagram page, like you did this whole color series. I'm like, what is going on here? In like a mind blown kind of way. I was like, this is not normal. This is like exceptional type of stuff. So tell me about your, it's your Instagram feed specifically, but just your photography in general and about this colors kind of a theme you, you went through here because when I, somehow I missed these, like when you first did them and I've gone back through as I said, knowing that you're coming on the show, I, I saw this and I was like, I have to put this in the notes because I can't stop looking at all the pictures. So tell us about that.

Instagram

Adam Blaine: Well, Instagram is one of the platforms I think I have the most fun with, um, just because I can create a cool picture. Um, I've always enjoyed photography and I always like criticize myself more with my photography because I always see things that could be improved. Um, but that little series I did on Instagram, it was kind of inspired by Tessa's posts because she does a lot of the stationary organized neatly. Um, so I just did the one, the first picture, um, just because I had all of these black things lying on my desk. So I did that one and I thought it'd be kind of cool to do, um, one for each color. Um, but I just have, I tried to have fun with Instagram and, you know, make things look cool. That's why I really enjoy the blog and Instagram mostly is because I can make, there's so many well-designed stationary items just to photograph them in a cool way, um, is what I enjoy most about this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'm, I don't know what to say about these. I'm just in love with them so much. I, I think the blue one's my favorite just cause I'm a big blue fan. Um, the pink and purple one is killer. Um, I I'm a big fan of, of both of those colors. I just, I don't know. I'm, I'm a big fan. You really well done as I've fallen over these pictures.

Myke Hurley: How long does it take to put something like this together? Like the, the, the images I'll put one in the show notes for illustration, just, you know, where you've got all the color products and stuff together. How long does it take you to, to, to put something like that up?

Adam Blaine: Um, it doesn't really take that long to put them together. Um, the actual pictures and finding the products. Um, the ones that took the most time were like the, the color specific ones, like the, like the yellow and orange one I did, um, and the pink and purple, just finding colors that actually match together. Um, the longest process is finding the right light because that is an, like a long going battle with me and finding the right light for a picture. Um, but I don't, I don't try to edit them a lot. So I try to, you know, take it and tweak it a little bit using Instagram's tools. But, um, I just, I just have fun with them mostly. I don't really go through like a process of how to take them. Um, I mean, most of these were from start to finish about half an hour, really. I don't want to go make it a huge process where I'm not having fun anymore.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Cause then it just becomes like a chore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Blaine: And that's kind of the approach I've taken with the blog as well. If a post is taking too long and I've stopped enjoying writing about something, I just, you know, stop and take another approach to it. That's a very interesting topic we're going to cover in next week's podcast.

Brad Dowdy: I'm glad you brought that up. So back on these pictures in the green, when you have, uh, um, what looks like about 10 green stamps. Do you have that? Did you have that laying around or did you have to go get those?

Adam Blaine: Somebody sent me those a long time ago when I started YouTube. Um, I mentioned like a few years ago, I mentioned that I wanted to try, um, like crafts, like, uh, card making or scrapbooking or something never took off, but somebody sent me a bunch of like, uh, paper things that to include in crafts. And one of the things that included was like hundreds and hundreds of old stamps and there's just loads of different colors of them. And I just needed a space to fill in the green picture cause I don't own a lot of green stationary. So I found those and just included them.

Brad Dowdy: It's ideal. I've, I've been going through all these just over and over again. I love it. So you, you mentioned YouTube and we're going to get to that, but first let's talk about our good friends at Squarespace.

Myke Hurley: Couldn't be a more perfect episode to talk about Squarespace on, I think, because Squarespace are the simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page website or online store. You can start building your own website today at squarespace.com and use the offer code Inc at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. With easy to use tools and templates, Squarespace helps you capture every detail of what drives you because if it's worth the effort, it's worth sharing with the world. If you're sitting here and listening to, uh, award-winning blogger, Adam Blaine, and you want to be an award-winning blogger like him, Squarespace is obviously the place to start because they give you all of the tools that you need to create something that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level. Like for example, um, a moment ago when we were talking, uh, about some of the products that Adam has reviewed, um, I went to his site to find the post to put in the show notes and I could very easily search it because Squarespace has inbuilt search functionality. It's very easy to enable all of that sort of stuff. So you don't need to worry about it. If you don't know how to code a website from scratch, if you don't know how to do all the security updates, or if you just don't want to, Squarespace is the platform for you. They have state-of-the-art technology to ensure security and stability and to keep your site up and running at all times. They have 24-7 support. They have their commerce platform to sell physical and digital goods and just so much more. I've used Squarespace for so long and I know that Brad has too and now of course Adam as well. So, you know, you can trust us. We know what we're doing here. If you sign up for a year, you'll get a free domain name allowing you to choose exactly what you want your site to be called and Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month. You can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required and start building your own website straight away. Just go to squarespace.com and then when you decide to sign up, because I'm sure you will want to, make sure that you use the offer code INK at checkout, INK. You'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the pen addict. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: So, Adam, video is one of those things that I haven't latched onto yet, but I want to. I don't know if it's just a time thing, if it's a I'm not good enough thing, especially when looking at your videos. You do a wonderful job. You've been doing this for how long have you been up on YouTube putting videos up? At least a couple of years around the time of the blog, right?

Adam Blaine: The YouTube was about a year and a half before the blog.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Okay, cool.

Adam Blaine: So just under four years.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. So you do a lot of, you started, you did a bunch of Filofax videos and you've done some more videos that tie in more directly with what you're doing at the Desk of Adam. Talk about like putting together like one of your YouTube videos for the Desk of Adam. Like I'm looking at just the homepage of your YouTube page. You have a bunch of the field notes videos. You have what's in my bag series, some things like that. Just talk about like the process of putting together one of those videos and why someone like myself needs to do this. And it's, it's a good thing.

Adam Blaine: I think with videos, I try to have more, show more personality than I do on the blog. With the blog, it's geared more about the actual product. And that's why on YouTube, I'm kind of, I'm kind of more relaxed with the sort of content I post. Like I'll do more videos like the what's in my bag one, which was me just chatting about how much I'm a hoarder for like 20 minutes. And then stuff like the field notes one, I wanted to just go through like some of the old X. I have quite an unnecessarily large collection of field notes. So I just wanted to go through some of the old ones. And I thought instead of photographing them and making a huge post about it, if I just talk through a video and talk through some of the history of the, of some of the additions, then it's a better format. Um, and then some products like the, uh, the vanishing point, I did a video with that just because I felt I could show the product better in some of the, the parts of it, um, in a video better than I can in pictures. Um, so it's more of an, uh, a free way to, to display things and you can definitely get your personality across more through videos than you can, um, in writing I found. And the engagement on YouTube is, is really great as well. People seem to enjoy that format more than most.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that I really enjoy watching. I need to, YouTube is one of those things I need to get more involved in. Um, I enjoy the format. I enjoy sharing. I enjoy watching what other people do. I just haven't been able to fit that into my, uh, my workflow yet. But, uh, I, like, I, I just love seeing your, your videos and I'm not going to lie, Adam. My favorite videos are the collaborations with your sister.

Adam Blaine: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So we, we have to talk about this. So your sister's name, Sarah, and I've gone through some of these videos and, you know, knowing Myke, like I do, I mean, when Myke travels to the U S you know, he stays with me, you know, when we're doing the Atlanta pen show and we always talk about, you know, the differences between the UK and the U S and a lot of it revolves around food. Um, so, you know, Myke's had to take, Myke's taken special deliveries of things. People have brought him from the U S back home. And in turn, Myke has brought things just from the UK to bring to us here in the U S. So you have a series where Sarah and Adam eat American candy. And Oh my God, I, I think I've watched, I think I've watched through them at least twice, like both of them. And tell me why y'all decided to do this and you know how it is working with your sister, because y'all do a really good job and I enjoy these very much.

Adam Blaine: Um, well, the first one started because of one of my viewers who I started talking to wanted to send me a bunch of, um, a bunch of just candy from America. Um, so I got that package, which was crazy. Uh, just having somebody send you like candy from a different country. Um, so we thought a way to show appreciation for that was to just try them on camera. Um, and then I visited the States last year and I thought while I was over there, I'd pick some stuff up for us to do another version of it. Um, and we just have fun with it. Those collaboration videos, they're just an excuse for us to hang out and, and we're and do something fun and we just film it. And I don't know that they're the more, the fun side of my YouTube channel.

Peppermint Patties

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I was watching volume, volume two is, is my favorite because I'm sitting there watching and you're not just like taking a bite or your sister's not taking a bite. Y'all like share handfuls and just like throw them in your mouth. And you did that with nerds. Like I love all the little Willy Wonka candies and my eyes were watering for you as you were and your sister were working through these nerds. I thought I was going to die. I thought it was hilarious, but, uh, y'all, y'all picked out some good ones. And apparently I'm such a, I'm a big mint fan. So apparently I need to get, uh, what are these called? After eights is what the brand is called.

Myke Hurley: After eights is the best. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So you've tried in the first video, you tried the York peppermint patties and the second when you tried junior mints, like I keep your peppermint patties at the house. That's like my favorite thing. So after eights is, so that's the, so Myke, next time you come, I need, that's what I need from you. So we can, uh, so we can test these out.

Myke Hurley: I do. I am partial to junior mints as well though. I've got to say, I love those things.

Brad Dowdy: I love junior mints. Unfortunately, Adam's box was mostly melted, but that actually happens a lot with the junior mints, the way they package them. It ends up in just one big brick of candy at the time. But my God, those, those lemon Oreos, those are just gross. Um, your, your sister, your sister enjoyed them, but that may be the worst Oreo ever.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. I mean, it was Easter when I was in America. So there's a lot of, um, Easter themed candy. And I went to, uh, I had to go to target. My mission was I need to set some time to go to visit target. And the amount of Oreo flavors was baffling. Cause we have the original ones. Um, it's only like in the last, well, the recent years that they've brought Oreo to the UK, but we don't have all like the weird flavors that, that are over there. Yeah. We've got some of that, some horrible lemon Oreos.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You did good for horrible there. Uh, Myke, are you an Oreo fan at all? That's one we never talk about.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I actually like the ones that are covered in the white chocolate.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah. Those are pretty good. Yeah. I I'm a, I'm an Oreo fan. Sure. I do like the traditional though. Um, not double stuff though. We'll, we'll fight over double stuff. Anyone who wants to, to fight over single stuff versus double, double stuff. I will, I will go, I will throw down on that. So I'm not a double stuff fan, but anyway, that, that was the tangent I had to go off on because I enjoyed those videos and everyone needs to check those out. So I'm going to, I'm going to make a hard, hard circle back around to a stationary product. I want to talk about, because I know Myke and I are such huge fans and it's a review you did recently and it's kind of an outlier for pen people a little bit when we talk about mechanical pencils, but when you have a product like the Rotring 600, that's such a classic thing. Um, how does that pencil work its way into your rotation? Because I know Myke's a huge fan. He's probably has it in his hand right now. Um, if I, if I'm a betting man, I'd say there's at least a 50% chance Myke's using it right now. How does that pencil work for you and how do you work it in with your pens?

Fountain Pens

Adam Blaine: Well, I always have a pencil with whatever I'm using, like with the phantom pens, I don't get to use them a lot during the day just because I'm either taking really quick notes or jotting things down on paper. That's not phantom pen friendly. Um, so every day I'll also carry like, um, I always still have my Fisher space pen every day, but I'll also carry a pencil just because they, they work great during the day. Um, and they've always been woodcase pencils like the Blackwing. Uh, but when I got the, the Rotring to try out, that's definitely taken the Blackwing's pace quite a lot recently. Um, it's just great. It's just built really well. It just feels really nice to, to use. Um, it's like all the great features of a well-built pen, but works as a pencil. I just have fun with that one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think there's a short list of products and I could probably come up with that list that are kind of like the all time greats, hall of fame, must own categories. Um, this would be one of them. Like if I had to say, Oh, you should own five stationary products. The Rotring 600 mechanical pencil has to be one of them. Right.

Myke Hurley: I agree completely.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's just, even for someone who's not into these things, you pick that up and you understand that's one of those kind of, Oh, this is how it should be moments when you've been using, you know, whatever big disposable, one of those yellow plastic pencil. You look at mechanical pencils. It's like, Oh, this is what it's supposed to be like. So whenever anyone reviews that, I like love to bring it up. Cause I want to hear like, you know, their thoughts about it. Cause I, it's, it's something everyone should own. Honestly, anyone who listens to this podcast probably should own a Rotring 600 just to understand what super high quality is. And it's honestly not that expensive. It's like a 30 to $35 mechanical pencil. So, and for, you know, someone who's not into these things, that sounds like a ton of money, but for what you get for the Rotring 600, it's cheap.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So the last thing I want to touch on, Adam, I want to know what's next. Like where, where you're, you're an award-winning blogger. You're a YouTube superstar. Where does it go from here? Like what's next at the desk?

Adam Blaine: That's a question I'm trying to ask myself as well. I don't know. I've still got a lot of things, like a lot of reviews and stuff for the blog and just carry on what I've been doing.

Adam Blaine: But expanding on it, I, I'm really not sure. I'm still trying to figure out after all these years, creating regular content for stuff. Um, that's a huge thing that I've been struggling with. Like actually making the time every other week or so to create content and make sure it goes up regularly. Um, so that's definitely something that I want to get a grasp of. Um, but I don't know. There's so many things that it can, it can lead onto. Um, I mean, like Tessa said, launching her store. I don't know if I'd go down the same route as that, but I definitely can't wait for hers. Um, we definitely need to make that happen and make sure that's 100% going to happen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I want to, before I forget, I didn't write this down. Um, I want to allow you to brag on what you did for your sister because I watched that in your, your video. Um, you know, your sister has a website up that you developed. And so why don't you, why don't you talk about that real quick?

Adam Blaine: Yeah, well, she has quite a big following on YouTube and her blog for crafts. She does a lot of tutorials for crochet. Um, and we decided last year to build a store for that. That was kind of like the natural progression for her. Um, so I don't really class myself as a web developer. Um, but I used what little knowledge I had to build a store, uh, which we're now running together, uh, which has taken up a lot of the time this year, which is why there hasn't been so much content. Um, but it's, it's been a fun thing. We always work well together. Um, and I'm really proud of how it turned out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I, I was browsing around it, you know, I'm not into it. But there's a, there's a ton of crossover in, you know, like knitting, crocheting and like the pen and stationary where there's a ton of crossover. You see a ton of similarities in the people that are into those types of things. So I thought that was really cool. How y'all, how y'all teamed up to do something like that. And it looks fantastic. I can tell you put a ton of work into it. So great job there. Um, I, I think that's about a wrap unless you have anything else, Myke, we want to make sure, uh, you know, Adam, you, you tell everyone where everyone can find you so they can come read all your stuff, watch all your videos, tell everyone where you're at online.

Adam Blaine: Yeah. I'm on all social media. It's at desk of Adam on Twitter, Instagram, uh, Facebook, YouTube is the same as well. Just search desk of Adam, um, or the blog is desk of Adam.com and everything can be found on there.

Brad Dowdy: Myke loves you for making that easy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's the best. Try. Yeah. So you can also find a list of all of the links for this episode, including everything Adam mentioned over at relay.fm slash pen addict slash two zero eight. Um, if you want to find Brad online, he is at pen addict.com and knock.co. Uh, he's on Twitter. He's at dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. And also on Instagram at pen addict. I am. I Myke, I M Y K E on both. Uh, thanks again to Penn Chalet and Squarespace for supporting this week's show. And we'll be back next time. Thank you so much to Adam for joining us. Thank you for listening until then say goodbye guys. Goodbye guys. Oh, perfectly in sync.