15 posts tagged “log-on”

Mini Cameras Everywhere

Oct 18, 2009
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Whether it is digital or analog, mini cameras are the most trendy thing happening in the industry. Digital Minox, Rollei, Diana mini, Digital Harinezumi (just released new white edition), etc. They are all in this tiny little promotion happening in Festival Walk and APM LOG-ON.

Mini Camera Promotion - Festival Walk and APM LOG-ON

And yes we are including the Olympus E-P1 too coz it is somewhat a smaller version of SLR. If you missed the chance to grab a Lomo mini camera keychain packaged in beautifully printed film cans, they are now back in stock, talking about 20% the size of the actual camera (hmmm, I did say they are keychains, not real cameras).

Mini Camera Promotion - Festival Walk and APM LOG-ON

Most of us are bored by the strap came with our cameras right, so we've been collecting from Korea and Japan some of the nicest straps ever produced and some of them are here, the rest will be coming to the stores this year.

Mini Camera Promotion - Festival Walk and APM LOG-ON

Friends from Lomo, Superheadz and Fujifilm gave us some very nice supports including some left over film canisters, cute POP and displays, etc and I feel thankful for their generosity and help. Superheadz even shipped from Japan a dozen foam boards printed with versions of the lovely Russian girl character.

Mini Camera Promotion - Festival Walk and APM LOG-ON

One of the pink display took me a few hours to create using films, MT tapes and various products from other departments. If you have time, please do visit these two stores and see if they are still intact :) This promotion lasts for 2 weeks from now on. Hope you like it and able to find some inspirations from it. Check out the Flickr photo set of this promotion.

Note: thanks Martin for the hard work. Get well soon Moon.

Skull Earphone with Flashing Red Eyes

Oct 17, 2009
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The earphone market is getting more crowded these days. Two years ago a good pair of earphone at about HK$200 was difficult to find, quality earphone often means at least over a thousand HK dollar from names like Shure and Sennheiser. Now a reasonably good earphone costs only around HK$150 and you get to see so many choices in retail stores. Earphones like candy indeed. The price is definitely going down further but I also observe a drop in quality from some of the bigger manufacturers, obviously hurting their brands and allowed some of the new comers to catchup with the market.

Skull headphone, eyes flash with music

I think good ones should charge properly instead of competing at cut throat price. Anyway, I saw this cool skull earphone from catalog and asked for a sample to try before I decide to order for the stores. The company producing it is not a professional earphone maker, that's why I had doubt before ordering. Surprisingly it its bass is not bad at all for a gimmicky earphone like this. Included in the package are two LR754 button cell for the LED light module. The skulls' red LED eyes flash following the beat of your music. Priced at HK$280 I think it is a good enough gift for Xmas, if everything goes smooth it will arrive our stores early December.

Back To School - Style and Gear Guide

Aug 16, 2009
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Time flies and summer is nearly gone, this year's back to school event has already started in several stores. We started to think about the theme almost right after last year's event. Lots of improvements were made in the whole process of planning and thanks to our stationery team's effort, each really played an important role in making this event successful.

Back To School 2009

The entire layout was planned using Google Sketchup, the first in city'super's history and I'm particularly proud of it. I started using it for this fair last year but lots of measurements were inaccurate, but this time it is near perfect! When we were standing on the aisles after 4 hours of setup, we could see the big difference and we could feel the satisfaction rush to our hearts. Layout is only one of the many critical success factors, the way our team "pour our hearts" to this really makes everything click and I can't be thankful enough for that. In the process, we all better ourselves. Almost everyone had some innovative small moves, gee I appreciate a lot! What can I do? Buy you gals lunch?

Back To School 2009

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One of the backdrop was my overnight illustrator work and the result is stunning to me. It is a "personalize + stylize" your notebook section. Here you get all the components you need to create your own perfect notebook, in addition, pen holders, pen, clips, stickers, stamps, MT-tapes are all there for customers to create something unique for themselves.

Back To School 2009

6 years ago when I first became a stationery buyer, I introduced computer related products for this fair coz school was no longer paper based. Since then we had a deal with Apple Computer directly to be in the fair and offer something special no other places have. If you carry a student card or show them your teacher's identification, you will get discount and a free iPod touch when you buy a computer, in addition a few free gifts for you to choose including hubs or computer carrying cases.

Princess Molly and Chocolate Molly (ibuddy)

I had high hope on the leaflet of this fair too, to make it like a magazine offering useful tips instead of just a product list brochure. It didn't happen as expected, but it is already one big improvement in terms of communication between various teams.

So in short, this year's back to school fair in city'super/LOG-ON, you can find Apple Computer's exclusive offer, colorful computer carrying cases, super funny and beautiful USB memory/gadgets, fashion headphones, cute portable speakers, hottest Korean stationery, Staedtler gears, personalize and stylize your notebook, newest stationery gadgets, Pilot's erasable gel pen, etc etc....... Just come over!

Stamps Arrived Today

Jun 19, 2009
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I wish I made them smaller, but they are still cool. 4 stamps to be put in Festival Walk LOG-ON store tomorrow for customer to play with their postcard in Travel Photo Cafe 2009!

Stamps for Travel Photo Cafe 2009

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And I had so much fun tonight playing with MT-tapes :)

Fun fun fun

Wrapping Junk Journals with Sleek Albums

Jun 19, 2009
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One of the cool thing about KOLO's refillable travel book called Essex is that you can actually archive the thinner refill onto a larger album. This way you will have an album showing selected photos as well as the actual journal you used when you were traveling.

Filing Travel Book to Album

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Some of us like to stick everything collected in trip to a thicker journal, write a lot and never miss a thing. This creates bulky books and may not be a good sight on a nice clean shelf. KOLO's Essex however invites you to strip things down to the essentials and keep things simple and elegant, just like the usual KOLO aesthetic which brings out your content (photo and text) while the album itself becomes a nice decor.

Travel/Photo journaling style is really a personal choice. I love to create junks and think back later what really happened. On the other hand, I admire clean looks. Perhaps a lot of small/thin refill notebooks filed into a clean album with selected photos is the solution to satisfy both wishes. I'll explore more.

BTW, I really hope the leather version of Essex is coming out sooner. Leaving HK on 28th June for Tokyo!

From Fly Catching Paper to Lifestyle Masking Tapes

Jun 1, 2009
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Looking at these beautiful masking tapes, can you believe they originated from fly catching paper from 1923? Any company survives over 80 years deserves certain admiration. Kamoi is a Japanese company started to produce fly catching paper in the 20's and gradually changed its business nature to paper adhesive tapes, recently supplying masking tapes for the auto industry.

MT masking tape by Kamoi Kakoshi Co. Ltd

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A few years ago, a Japanese school teacher sent a mail to Kamoi requesting them to make more colors available from their adhesive tapes because she used to do school projects with a lot of their tapes and felt the demand strong for the craft projects in education sector. Kamoi responded by trial running and eventually the MT masking tape brand was born. Imagine that, one customer comment transforms your entire business. You just have to listen carefully and appreciate your customer's creativity. Today MT became wildly popular in Japan for all the possibilities this simple tool can bring to lifestyle.

MT masking tape by Kamoi Kakoshi Co. Ltd

I saw these tapes in Japan early 2008 when they hit the market. I immediately got a few and pondered whether this will be good for our market in Hong Kong. Some say Hong Kong is a cultural desert but I always challenge them "did you do something about it?" Lifestyle is learned, so these tapes won't get hit unless somebody is willing to show the possibilities. You just have to inspire by examples, and listen to your customers. OK, they are arriving in a week's time to city'super/LOG-ON and I'm gonna feature them in our Travel Photo Cafe 2009! I beg you to go to MT masking tape's web site, check out how people are using them in most creative ways and you'll be amazed, guaranteed!

After 4 Years of Secret Agenda, A Photography Section

May 18, 2009
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After secretly injecting my personal interest of photography in our merchandising for the past 4 years, I was finally granted to have such a real section in the new APM LOG-ON store. If I were to propose such section on day 1, it wouldn't be approved, it would be subjected to a series of scrutiny, inquiry, doubts and attacks, eventually became an unfinished project on corporate earth.

Photography Section and KOLO @ APM LOG-ON

I'm thankful even though it takes time for them. But in the process I figured all forces mysteriously working together towards this hidden agenda, mysteriously! Through numerous small projects, vendors getting more mature, customer showing more interests, higher standard is achieved..... I'm intrigued. All these require just one single binding force of good will and aspiration. Well, it is no big achievement but for myself it is rewarding enough.

Photography Section Antique Table

The Photography retail business on earth is amazingly boring. You want a camera you walk into a camera shop, you want something printed you go to a lab, you want gadgets you go back to a camera shop. There is no CONTENT and sharing in all of them. On the surface, if you go to this Photography section of ours, it can appear all too commercial, composed with brands like Lomography, KOLO, Canon, Fuji Film, Umbra, etc. But look, there are people behind these brands working hard to bring out the fun and aesthetics to everyday lives. What's lacking in this industry is just a place to find and share contents. I'm not saying this very section is in its ultimate form, but it is a start, a very primitive start.

Photography Section Antique Table

If you remember the "Our Last Polaroids" event last year (community photos here, here, here, here, here, here and here), it is the best memory I got in this journey. The online and offline community worked hand in hand to pull off this 2 week exhibition and gathering. It is the nearest form of the ultimate Photography gathering space in my mind.

Photography Section Antique Table

Well back to reality. The most appealing thing about this area is that it is not a camera shop or lab. I gathered quite a few things related to analog, film, album, frame, photography, polaroid camera and films, lighters, key chains, instax, lomo, superheadz, prisms, etc. You can say it is a collage in retail form. Again, I'm not proud of its current state yet, I'm only proud of the process. So there's still a lot to do.

Photography Section Accessories

BTW, FujiFilm Hong Kong gave us great support recently. They made us this little Instax town display for our new store launch. Very creative use of instax film on paper made figures! How lovely.

FujiFilm's Instax Promotion

New Stationery Store in APM Mall!

May 18, 2009
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I can't believe we have so many new projects, like we are not supposed to rest. I'm all excited about this new store in APM mall however. Talking about 63 shelves and 2900 products for stationery department, a new photography corner (which I'll talk about in the next post), travel corner, cosmetic, fashion food, gadgets, etc. Every single product in the stationery department was hand picked by our stationery team to compose the whole section, only the best, the funniest and the most efficient products are there (well, I did put dozens of low performers there but they are very nice products and thought people would like to explore). It is soft launched today at noon, press tour will be on 19th May 2009 while it will be officially opened on 20th May 2009.

Stationery in APM mall

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Click on the above image to see the panoramic view of the entire stationery and photography sections.

Fish Sausage Man

One of the new arrivals we have here is "Fish Sausage Man". Yeah I know, it is weird and you'd have enough after you've seen our "Banana Man". Just check out the video and the story, it is super funny. You've got to know about his family tree, mom and dad are fishes. He also has some Russian friends and likes to dry up tea bags and reuse for at least 3 times!

I know the spending power in this region is not exactly promising, but I'm glad I'm allowed to share and show off great stationery, photography and gadget products in this location.

Huge Moleskine City Notebook Display

Jan 21, 2009
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Moleskine City Notebook Tokyo/Kyoto Launch

Many have been waiting for Tokyo City Notebook's arrival for a long time. It is finally here launching together with Kyoto version. We are receiving these huge display for our stores to get maximum impact of such launch. Perhaps there will be people queuing up waiting to take a picture with it.

Moleskine City Notebook Tokyo/Kyoto Launch

I myself will wait for the stores finish using the display and drag it back to my home for wall decoration! Envy me eh?

Travel Photo Cafe 2008

Jun 30, 2008
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This concept cafe is finally here (development), don't be deceived by just the look, I've added some very nice contents inside, i.e. if you care to discover.

Travel Photo Cafe 2008 FW poster

I had great fun to design the event poster and postcard, which went well into production. I thought marketing was going to print a glossy postcard but they didn't, I still love how it turned out though. I'm posting several written postcards to friends around the world.

Today I went to the store to give a final touchup on the entrance display. I was so happy to see people stopping by the entrance display right after what I did to it. Just what is this event all about? It is a concept cafe filled with things related with travel and photography. Travel/photography magazines, Moleskine, Lomography, Traveler's Notebook, Lonely Planet, LUXE cityguide, Cavallini notebooks, Authentic Models globes, Chronicle Books' Wanderlust series, antique keys, travel jewelry cases, Eiffel tower keychain, etc etc.

Travel Photo Cafe in Festival Walk

There are great prizes for patrons too! Anybody purchase over HK$300 in Times Square and Festival Walk store will be eligible for a lucky draw. Prizes include: Samsonite Valiance spinner, upright; Virgin Atlantic Airways tickets from Hong Kong to Sydney, Lonely Planet compete set of ENCOUNTER guide, Lonely Planet Travel Photography book, Moleskine bestsellers, Moleskine HK/Beijing travel set, Mendoza Panzer Z luggages, Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS, Canon SELPHY CP740 compact photo printer, Cosmopolitan Paris trolley, Lomo Diana F+ with flash, Lomo Diana White Edelweiss, Lomo Fish Eye No.2, LUXE Asian Grand Tour box set, KOLO albums, Design Go kettle, Dr. Willard's moisturizing lotion.

Travel Photo Cafe in Festival Walk

I've invited several people to be speakers for a culture talk in our store. The topic is about how simple it is to carry a totally different mindset in your travel and act upon some simple techniques to create stunning photography and travel experience. Speakers includes a Lonely Planet travel guide writer, a lomographer, an architect and me. The architect will also share with us some of the great spots in Hong Kong where you can experience our rich cultural heritage. This talk will be held on 5th July 2008 in Times Square city'super.