The Wonderful World of Japanese Stationery
Terrance Brown
One of the first things that comes to mind for many people when you mention Japan is the vast array of crazy inventions that come out seemingly daily.
And yet among all the fads and failures that come out are a lot of pretty awesome and useful things, especially when it comes to stationery.
Recently I discovered the treasure trove that is Japanese stationery on the wonderful JetPens website with their stock of pens, paper and stationery from Japan.
Now that may sound utterly strange to some people. After all, who in their right mind would be interested in the minute differences between inks, papers and pens let alone be fascinated by the myriad techniques Japanese designers have implemented to try and make writing easier?
Mechanical pencils that automatically rotate the lead to make sure you always have a consistent fluidity in your writing, pencils that automatically prevent the lead from breaking if you press too hard, color pens that let you erase the ink as though it was pencil and customizable pens that let you pick and choose from a wide array of colors, widths and styles to suit your needs are just a few examples of the cool things that Japanese companies come up with.
It’s pretty easy to lose your self in JetPens wide selection of pens, notebooks and bags. But best of all for me is that most of what they stock is cheaper and more easily available for me as I live in Japan!
I was also amazed to see just how popular stationery goods are in Japan when I went shopping at a Loft store recently. They had shelf after shelf after shelf of notebooks, pens, files, washi tape and almost anything else you could think of when it comes to stationery. Schedules are also really popular here with the new year always seeing plenty of display space given over to huge stacks of journals and the like that range from drab looking black cover diaries for salarymen to the material covered character schedules made for younger girls.
One thing’s for sure, I keep on discovering new things in Japan even though I’ve lived here for several years. Who knows what crazy thing I’ll discover next!