Don’t write handwriting off yet!

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Writing by hand is becoming fashionable again, and stationery and pens have never looked so good.

There are pens, including and especially fountain pens (again) of all kinds and notebooks in all manner of funky colors and designs. And many of those – pens and notebooks – could be seen at the London Stationery Show held from April 1 to April 2, 2014.

It was – in my opinion – good to see that fountain pens are back again (with a vengeance) and paper notebooks in all manner of forms and those notebooks that are made by Castelli in Italy (and yes, Made in Italy) or Leuchtturm1917 (Made in Germany) are FSC certified and as far as Castelli is concerned all the workers are unionized and thus conditions for the workers thus are good. The same cannot be said in places where many other notebooks and such like are produced, such as in a number of countries of the Far East.

Pen and paper are far from dead. In fact both are having a revival and a ball and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with paper and using it. It does not cause the destruction of the rainforest. It is a myth that must be put to bed or better still buried. Palm oil, on the other hand, does cause serious destruction to the rainforest as do certain farming practices in Brazil and other countries near the equator.

Quality paper notebooks and high quality writing instruments, including and especially fountain pens, are in demand by the new generation of hipsters. What to the Sloane Ranger generation was the Lefax and the Filofax to the new hipster generation is the Moleskine (and similar) notebooks and the fountain pen.

Despite the fact that we are in the so-called digital age pen and paper more than have their place here and with the revelations that our online communications and things that we store there – and even on our computers – are not safe from prying eyes, the letter, the notebook, the pen and the typewriter even, have their place and are even been given a pride of importance – paper and typewriter that is especially – in the Russian intelligence and security community. And if they are concerned with their high grade of encryption I think we all should be. So, let's get back to paper and the pen or typewriter.

The London Stationery Show also had a great number of other green and greenish inventions on show such as notepads made from stone paper. The latter is made from limestone waste from the quarrying industry and thus kept out of landfills.

Just before the beginning of the London Stationery Show the National Stationery Week’s, Get Britain Writing and Get Kids Writing campaigns took off and a long list of retailers and the Post Office are standing behind this.

While one could say that to some extent all of them have a vested interest, the retailers wanting to see sales go up and the Post Office the use of the letter service again, to get back to writing properly is a very good idea indeed. We must also combine that with teaching children not just good handwriting – I can't writer properly myself by hand though – and the proper use of grammar. They are writing a letter not sending a text message on their cell phones. And when it comes to letters; there is still something almost magical about a letter (no, not a bill or some advertising) dropping through the letterbox.

I know that I am extremely old-fashioned as to the use of pen and paper and am always accused of being biased towards paper being a commercial forester by original trade. And I am also very biased towards the old-fashioned fountain pen.

Having mentioned the latter I must mention the fact that Meisenbach pens from Germany have a new rather innovative product on the market which combines the fountain pen (ink cartridge) with the ballpoint pen in one. With this one, when you run out of ink you simply replace the cheap common garden ink cartridge for a few pence and the empty one can go for recycling being made of PE.

Writing and being able to write (properly) matters, if anything more than ever in a digital age. And of course you can never have too much stationery, including notebooks and pens.

© 2014

The comeback of the paper notebook

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Basically declared dead well ahead of time at the advent of mobile devices, the cloud and all that the paper notebook is far from dead and dying. In fact, it is making a definite comeback, as are good quality pens and their use.

The German company Leuchtturm 1917, who has been making good quality notebooks well before Moleskine was ever thought of, reported a 40% increase in notebook sales across the board in 2013 compared to the previous year. And more and more notebooks of the style, upon which Moleskine is based, are being produced by and for other stationery companies.

Seeing that we are, supposedly, in the digital age makes the return of analog ways an interesting phenomenon, not only are paper notebooks, especially good quality ones, all of a sudden cool – a little like the Filofax was in the Sloane Ranger era – but demand for typewriters, and here even and especially manual ones, and here also working vintage ones, also is on the up.

Paper and especially paper notebooks, and analog in general, is far from being dead or at the brink of extinction in the digital age and this is also good so, in my opinion.

The United States has reported that in a number of areas enquiries as to learning the use of a typewriter to such an extent that typewriting schools are opening up (again) even. And most of those enquiries appear to be coming from young people under 28 years of age.

Paper, handwritten, or types, or printed, will be with us for much longer as records and books go than anything stored on hard drives or in “the cloud”.

The British Archives at Kew have been working on the archiving or websites and other material from and on the Internet but had to make a choice as to what to keep and what not to and much of what is on the Internet today, even important information, will not be available for future generations, not even researchers, unlike published books in print, notebooks, journals, and other paper records, whether held in public, university or private “collections”. And we call that advancement?

E-books and cloud storage all sounds good until we look a little deeper into that glass and find that we have been falling for an illusion on a grand scale.

Amazon's Kindle books have had a serious problem once when Amazon decided that people had had their books long enough and deleted them off people's devices. Even though you pay for them you do not, unlike with a physical book, actually own them and you are not permitted to – legally – pass them onto others. It is also not technically possible to do so.

If you store your notes – and some people even upload, using white-lined notebooks, pages of their paper notebooks – and other stuff in the cloud you give, by using the service, the owner of that service, be this Google or whoever, copyright use of everything to use and distribute as they see fit. Sorry, but I do not think so! Thus my notes and other materials stay in hard copy firmly with me (and in digital for on some electronic media in my possession).

It very much appears to be time to rethink digital and find some terra firma again and some sanity. And, it would appear, a fair number of people around the globe are beginning to realize that too.

The paper notebook, the fountain pen and the typewriter are on their way back again already and, so it would appear, not just in a small way.

Paper notebooks have a great deal going for them and they are far from dead, that is for sure. While this may not be to the liking of the proponents and advocates of paperless and may also displease the believers that the production of paper harms the tropical rainforests – which is a fallacy – it is a sign that people appear to be looking for “slower” ways in our maddening modern world. The continuing increase in the same of paper diaries, address books and agendas also proves this trend.

At the same time paper notebooks, the notes contained therein and diaries are always accessible, even on a mountain top or during a power outage and thus beat the electronic equivalent – if there is such a thing as an electronic equivalent to them – hands down (and that goes for real books as well). No batteries, no power cord, no connection, or whatever, to worry about.

Paper is here to stay and is going still very strong indeed and long may it continue.

Personally I cannot function without paper notebooks of some kind and I always have various on the go.

© 2014

DETAILS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Leuchtturm1917 Notebook – Product Review

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

There are notebooks and then there are notebooks. Not all notebooks are created equal.

If it is notebooks that you may wish, want or need to keep for more or less posterity then you do not want to use some real cheap ones; you want some decent ones and notebooks that look the part as well.

Whether it is for yourself or to give as presents – if you can actually bear to part with them once you have bought them – these notebooks from German family firm Leuchtturm1917 will always bring a touch of class to keeping up-to-date and organized.

From a choice of 10 colours and 4 rulings, to the quality of the non-bleed-through paper and the ingenious numbered pages, and from the table of contents and to the expandable pocket for storing receipts and business cards – these are notebooks with a difference. And, though some might disagree, are superior even to others in the same or similar price range.

For left-handers, these thread-bound notebooks open flat, while the unique pen loop, which is an additional extra (which means it is not built into the book, to avoid misunderstandings), means you’ll always have a pen handy.

Other details of those notebooks include a page marker, elastic fastener, 8 perforated pages at the back in case you would like to share notes with other, plus a set of stickers for easy reference.

Those stickers are designed for and intended as labels for the purpose of archiving and there are three for the spine and three for the cover in each book.

And, to make your task of archiving easier still Leuchtturm1917 does also make and supply archiving storage boxes which would be most suitable for the task of keeping your notebooks safely organized for future reference.

As they say, “details (do) make the difference.” And for once it has nothing to do with “Vorsprung durch Techik.”

http://www.leuchtturm1917.com/en

© 2011