10 posts tagged “tokyo”

More Innovations from MT Masking Tapes

Nov 9, 2009
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Thanks to Mr. Wang from MT, last week I received a package of masking tape samples which are limited editions only to be sold in their very own new shop near Waseda University in Tokyo.

Kamoi's beautiful washi paper made masking tapes are getting so popular, many end user inspiration just keep coming in as evident from MT's web site. These new patterns and sizes you see here gives a hint about MT's development, more applications built-in to the tapes, like labels, wallpaper, wrapping paper and Xmas versions.

Check out MT's blog and you'll see how the shop looks like, can't wait to be there next year. If you can imagine it, Kamoi can make it, so don't be shy to send mail to them to suggest new product ideas.

Sweetroad, Iwata Denki, Vintage Revival Productions

Nov 5, 2009
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It's time to gear up for lots of store visits, there will be a lot of layout changes, one more new store and multiple phases of Xmas promotion happening from this week onward. My gears will change from office setting (mind.depositor, Moleskine diary, fountain pen, calculator, camera) to field setting (pocket Moleskine, camera).

Gear up with Moleskine

One of the indispensable tool is this "Holder for M" from Vintage Revival Productions. It is an ingenious two piece product made from a combination of leather and denim label material. One piece acts as a holder which allows you to insert your M into your jean's back pocket (8,800 yen), the other is a pen holder (4,500 yen). Both pieces are looped so that you can slide to the front and back cover of you M easily without permanent damage.

Moleskine Holder - on the go

Where did I found this you asked? It was last July when I thought I was having the last meeting of a business trip in Tokyo, Mr. Doi from Sweetroad (a great store to visit mind you) told me about Mr. Iwata and his shop Iwata Denki. I had to rush to that store in Setagaya before it's closed. Full of sweat and unable to communicate in Japanese, I was signing and nodding a lot and had a great "conversation" with Iwata san, a designer himself, who published 2 design books called GOALD (goal of design), and constantly working to create new products. Do visit Iwata san's blog to get a glimpse of his works and product collections from his friends.

Iwata Denki shop - Iwata san holding his leather M skins

Iwata Denki shop - Iwata san's leather goods

Iwata Denki shop - handmade leather goods

Iwata Denki shop - Iwata san's leather photo clips

Iwata san made some very nice leather Moleskine covers. They are like stickers, only in leather, which are removable and probably can last several uses when you change your Moleskine. I was about to buy the brown snake skin embossed or the wood imitation cover but too bad they were out of stock. He also made those cute little leather photo clips which look like smileys, they are put into recycle film cans and sold in stores like Tokyu Hands and Loft.

Iwata Denki shop - Vintage Revival Productions' Holder for M

Iwata san was very keen to show me his collection of great products in the shop, wooden iphone case, his leather credit card holder, coin pouch etc. "Holder for M" was the one thing I got from his shop, then I was out of cash in Tokyo :)

So if you are going to Tokyo, I suggest you to dig up these interesting small shops to go, it is far more rewarding as a journey. As for myself, the connection and sense of discovery always give me the thrill.

Sea Paradise and Kidzania

Jul 13, 2009
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The last 2 days of my family trip we went to Sea Paradise in Yokohama and Kidzania in Lalaport.

Sea Paradise: Smiling Beluga Whale

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We were amazingly close to these sea creatures and we could almost touch them. For a small fee you will be able to swim with dolphins too. This white Beluga whale was perhaps too bored inside the huge cylindrical tank, he blew bubbles and catch them repeatedly while swimming up and down. We touched baby sharks and communicated with penguins as well.

Kidzania was great. My son got to play being police, fireman, rescue team, ice cream maker and courier. Each session usually last about 30 to 40 mins. Most time was spent in training before the actual missions and kids learned equipment names or skills required for the missions.

Kidzania: Fireman

After kids completed their missions, they get paid Kidzania money so that they can bank in or spend on stuffs like ice cream or souvenir. I noticed that most of the professions/institutes there are actually sponsored by brands, such as hospital by Johnson and Johnson, ice cream house by Nissei, airline by ANA, etc etc. It is a great idea, perhaps real employees circulate to Kidzania and play with kids too.

At the end of the day at Kidzania, both my son and us were exhausted. It was a proud day for him wearing different uniforms and doing the 'real' stuffs. For us, we enjoyed a lot seeing him experiencing a lot in 5 hours. Highly recommended for those who have kids. One thing though, the "English Spoken" signage means nothing at all in Kidzania Tokyo, coz staff could barely speak English there.

The next day, family went back to Hong Kong while I stayed in Tokyo for business. Found a lot of great stationery stuffs I'm gonna share soon.

Traveler's Notebook Event in Tokyo

Mar 24, 2009
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Such a beautiful event held in Tokyo! Designphil organized to exhibit some of the 'professional users' notebooks in Spirarl Market, too bad it was just for a few days. I'm very happy to be part of it, my previously used notebooks were shown in the exhibition, along side with a recent customization I did to the new passport size Traveler's Notebook.

Lie Fhung and Patrick Ng's submission

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Simply check out Iijima san's blog Traveler's Diary to find out latest posting of things related to this notebook. If you can't read Japanese, you can use help from Excite's translation engine. It will be quite interesting to read how this exhibition was done from preparation to finish (Iijima san was very specific to find an old Chinese/Hong Kong bicycle to be put into the show)

Traveler's Notebook Exhibition in Spiral Market

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Ok, if Iijima san is listening, please stamp my passport size notebook with those being shown in the exhibition, oh and postcards, oh and...... :)

(photo credit of this post: Traveler's Diary)

3 More Days in Tokyo

Feb 19, 2009
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A trip to Tokyo is always 3 days too short. I was going to Frankfurt and immediately Tokyo from end Jan 09 to early Feb, the trip was so compressed I could hardly breath. Next time I should just take some extra day-offs for myself and meet some friends. Despite economic downturn (-12.7% in Japan!), I still found a lot of great stuffs in Tokyo, perhaps we are only looking at a slow start of a collapse. Interestingly, some company like UNI (Mitsubishi) has an interesting tag line in their internal communication, "We will not participate in recession". How brave and confident, according to source, they did not cut back any R&D expenses because that's the most important investment to them.

Stuffs from Tokyo

The loveliest thing I got this time is DULTON's tin can truck! I simply love the color and shape a lot and I'm using it to store my craft stuffs. Next Pilot's Frixion Ball in new colors! This time metallic shiny barrel with a new semi-transparent rubber, same amazing heat sensitive ink which can be "erased" with friction. If you don't realize the benefit of it, think of being able to use erasable ink on your tiny diary. UNI on the other hand will launch its secret weapon to answer Pilot's Coleto series. You simply select your favorite 0.38mm or 0.5mm ink refill and put into barrel of your choice (metallic pink/blue/silver/black), you can even put in a mechanical pencil! Name of this new pen is called "Style Fit". The rest: Elvis looking Mr. Bruzh, a keyboard brush, just "take off my wig, insert finger and brush". Mark's tiny keychain whistle. Various clips in great colors.

Midori Traveler's Notebook Passport Size

Designphil (or Midori) launches a new Traveler's Notebook in passport size, available in March. The idea according to Iijima san from Midori is that you use the passport size leather notebook to capture stuffs and then transfer to your more permanent full size Traveler's Notebook, so every notebook refill of the passport size has removable sheets. It is ultra portable not only good for your passport as a jacket, you can roll it up, throw it into your backpack, torture it and it still has that beautiful raw look. Same as the full size Traveler's Notebook, you can add a plastic zip pocket to store receipts and name cards.

Midori Traveler's Notebook Passport Size

Three types of notebook refills: ruled, blank, square. Instead of the all too familiar "in case of loss, please return to..." page, an immigration form looking page is printed on the last page of these notebooks. I tried to use it in my Tokyo trip and it feels great, care free, easy and reliable.

Traveler's Notebook Suitcase

I also visited Midori's office and there is an entire showroom out of 4 dedicated to Traveler's Notebook. They are planning an exhibition in Spiral Market in March/April, which I'll try to participate by sending them my version of usage. Did I mention I was #6 on their Professional Users list? In addition, there's something new for the full size notebook too, a free monthly schedule and a free weekly schedule.

Biscuit Mini Album

Oh this tiny little Biscuit album is so cute, you really want to have a bite and it smells good too. I started to put some of the tiny photos of my index prints onto the first few pages and it will soon sit inside the treasure box for my son.

Masking Tape

Can you believe it? MT Masking Tape was giving out free tapes during the Tokyo Gift Show! I was too shy and got one only. They are launching so many new colors and patterns, you guys in the western world will drool all over their web site.

Valentine Mini Card

And Russian dolls already invaded Japan for a while, this year I saw this mini Valentine card and I just love the chocolate colors and the tiny envelope. Sorry darling, I bought a card but I don't intend to use it.

Finally, long hauling dozens of magazines was not easy, but it was worth it. I stopped by a book store on my last day of stay in Tokyo and grabbed stationery and photography magazines like crazy. Just give me 3 more days there please.

One Year Ago

Feb 18, 2009
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I probably didn't upload this picture before. These are lovely stuffs I got from Tokyo in Feb 2008. Stay tune for what I found in 2009!

Stuff from Tokyo 1 Year Ago

Connections - After the Fact Discovery, Frankfurt and Tokyo

Feb 11, 2009
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Just came back from Frankfurt's PaperWorld and Tokyo's Gift Show. A continuous trip to two different time zones did worn me out a bit, yet new stuffs I discovered and experienced helps to focus my energy positively. This is so important. If I were to travel that much just for work and never took opportunities to see things I chose to see, my body simply could not cope with the sheer volume of activities.

Dulton, VW, Key, Stamp, Frame

"To have faith is to be sure of the things we have, to be certain of the things we cannot see". A Bible verse I always carry with me to see things beyond and to be grateful of what I already have. Along with the verse, I also carry 3 cameras (a broken digital IXUS, a Polaroid SLR690 and a Rollei 35SE) to give me different eyes to see beyond the obvious. And I'm grateful I always find peace and satisfaction within.

The first instant I saw this Dulton tin truck in Tokyo I immediately fell in love with it. I decided to use it to store some of my daily craft items. I also got this 1952 Volkswagen Beetle for my son, beautiful pastel blue color, he LOVES it! I got these two things from different places but they have one thing in common which I didn't know until I came back to Hong Kong. The license plate on the Dulton truck is "1952"! Magic, I couldn't believe my eyes.

Smoking area and fire alarm

In Frankfurt's airport there were these two things sitting together peacefully. A blue "Smoking area" sign high above and a red "fire alarm" below. They have great color contrast, only if you put these two photos together. Interestingly, "Raucherzone" (a German word for smoking area) and "Feuermelder" (a German word for fire alarm) both have 11 characters, even the English "Smoking area" has 11 characters too. That was 11:27 am when I shot these pictures. Now, what about 27? 2+7=9. "Fire alarm" has 9 characters! Yeah, I know you can explain everything with numerology but that's a good exercise for me too to find connections between things. 11 = smoking area, 27 = 9 = fire alarm and they goes together like I had this idea when I shot the photo with the clock intentionally included behind. Now count the number of characters in "Frankfurt"!

Antiques: Polaroids and Bowlings

Frankfurt Hauptbanhof, Globe

The rest of the trip in Tokyo was meticulous hunting of interesting stuffs for our retail customers. In an antique shop where I get refurbished SX-70 Polaroid cameras (in this photo dozens of naked white SX-70s) they sell old bowling pins too, I took a picture and later at dinner with several colleagues I found 2 of them are bowling enthusiasts.

Darts with colleagues

I stayed in Ebisu, Tokyo as usual. Almost every night I went to this darts bar called "Lani Girl" to play darts with colleagues. Guess what, I've never went to this bar with any guy before, there is a reason why they named it "Lani Girl" you know. So, this concludes my "Connections" post and a fabulous trip too short. I'll be back to Tokyo in July, I hope to extend a few days to discover more. Any of you readers out there wanna meet, let's plant this in our minds and things will happen accordingly.

That Moleskine Cow...

Jul 15, 2008
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It has been less fun to see all those Moleskine exhibitions nowadays, for me. In June I visited Tokyo's Lifestyle show and just last week I visited Tokyo again for the International Stationery show. In both event, Moleskine was elaborately exhibited there. My feeling towards the writing, journaling, drawing culture of the Moleskiners lowered significantly simply because it all became too commercial.

Moleskine Detour Exhibition in Lifestyle Show Tokyo June 2008

In both events, I got a little time to look at all those drawings from the Detour project, (as corrected by Paola - Moleskine brand equity & network relations, "the exhibition in Lifestyle show did not contain any works from Detour project, all the Detour events are listed on the official website www.moleskine.com/detour where you can take a look at the notebook and also read some lines on the single author's biography. The Detour Project is not a commercial event and it's meant to support the non profit foundation lettera27") as well as those from Invitation au Voyage. Who were the artists and what's their stories? I didn't care to find out anymore. They became one of the thousands of notebooks with drawings. The booth design and display however was great.

One large table was dedicated to all those examples of corporate-premium-limited editions. Do I want to collect them all? No. And look, in June I went to Shibuya's Loft and the space dedicated to a short-term promotion of Moleskine was so huge it spans nearly 4 meters wide.

Moleskine in Shibuy Loft, Tokyo June 2008

The ever increasing SKU now becomes unbearable to me. Now the spinners made by Modo e Modo are invading retailers especially department stores. Yes these are negative feelings of me not liking product marketing being too commercial and people forget about the artists who contributed. I even heard that there will be more stationery products from Moleskine, e.g. maybe a ring binders with an elastic band (which was used as a catalog distributed to distributors last year).

Moleskine New Products 2008

Now many asked about when the leather version of 2009 diary will be launched. I heard that it will arrive in Hong Kong around end-August. So it will be around mid-August for people in Europe to buy them. The catch, only 1 retailer per country is allowed to sell the limited edition. It will be disappointing a lot of fans, I love the look and feel of the notebook though :)

A note from a recent meeting with a French stationery maker: Société Générale, one of the main European financial services companies which acquired Moleskine for 60 euros (3 times Moleskine's market value back then?) back in 2006, experienced a 4.9 billion euros trading lost in just three days in January 2008. They are going to milk the Moleskine cow!

Well, I have a thought. The tremendous success of Moleskine's revival is a true marketing success story. Millions of community effort to promote its branding. What have Moleskine done to return favor to the community? Now that Moleskine is made in China, a fact that not many people adore, what did Moleskine do when there was a great earthquake in SiChuan China when more than 71,000 people were dead? Well I did a search on Google "Moleskine Charity" and nothing really came up. Enlighten me if I'm wrong (and Paola did, the lettera27 projects are making changes that will certainly produce a larger results in longer run, the next Chatwin waves may change the world as we know it. As a retailer we are increasing our efforts to source from companies that encourage food chain sustainability such as farming/fishing, while on the product manufacturing side the burden is now on top tier vendors/manufacturers to set examples when fair trade, environmental protection and cultural preservation become common terms. I hope Moleskine as a global brand will create conscious efforts to localize the such practice in countries they appear and source from, especially when they enter the CHINA market in the near future. Yes, a huge challenge for a company with only a dozen of staff, but the impact they can make will be tremendous.). I mean I love the brand and product, just that I expected a little more from it to be more cultural instead of commercial, more world-class in terms of charity instead of world-domination.

City of Stationery Abundance - Tokyo

Sep 10, 2007
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This marks probably my 3rd last trip for the year. I will go to London in a week's time and hopefully Shanghai to attend PaperWorld there if possible.

This Year's 3rd Last Trip - Tokyo

Among all cities I travel to find stationery goods, Tokyo is probably the most abundant city in terms of stationery, craft and hobby products. I can stay there for a whole month and still find exciting things on daily basis, I'm not kidding coz I look at stores as detail as possible. There are large department/category stores like ITOYA, Hands, Loft, Maruzen, Yuzawaya ... . There are lifestyle stores like 5th Alley Studio, Archimedes Spiral, Delfonics, Smith, Amadana, Cibone, Spiral Market, Living Motif .... . There are small but unique stores like 36 Sublo, Postalco, SCOS, Six, Shoshaikan ... etc etc, I can't name them all here.

Tokyo Stationery Related Store Address Cards

When I visit all these stores, I would collect their store address cards and gradually I built up stacks of them for different cities/countries. Naturally Tokyo stack is the biggest, talking about 3 times visit each year and I can always find new ones to visit. This September trip to Tokyo I arranged an interview with a small stationery store owner, Murakami Yuki from 36 sublo, who's continuing a family tradition of maintaining stationery store with a twist. She is the 3rd generation to have a stationery store, her grandfather created one, her father revamped it and it is still in Kyoto (京都) while she pursued new challenge by coming to Tokyo with significant deviation from previous style, yet retaining the mood from her grandfather's. I will post the interview soon.

Yuzawaya - Tokyo

So with referral from friends in Tokyo, I found Yuzawaya (ユザワヤ), the biggest store for art/craft supposedly and established since 1955. I went to one near Kichijoji station (吉祥寺駅) as my last stop for market research and it was near store closing, I was rushing around feeling all excited, so many things, so many raw material for great art projects, yet so little time. I finally bought several scrap leather to make my own pen case and mouse pad. Think of it, 1,000 yen for a piece of scrap leather 12"x12" to make a leather mouse pad it is super value! You simply can't find any leather product this cheap, that's the power of creating your own stuff using raw material.

Clips: I Can't Believe Myself

Jul 13, 2007
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Clips from Tokyo Japan

Yeah, everytime I pulled out my camera to take photos of stationery stuffs my friends and colleagues would call me "Otaku" or in English "Nerd". Well if you think nerds are people who are obsessed with details, meaning, perfection and ... well, try to see the other sides of me coz I'm a Gemini extreme :)

Anyway, I got all these clips from visiting some stationery stores in Tokyo after the International Stationery Show (ISOT). The show was exhausting coz we were there to place orders for the coming seasonal calendar and schedule book for 2008, we were so busy and couldn't get to enjoy seeing the rest of the show in our own pace. But it was a rewarding trip.

The picture above was taken from just outside Narita airport before we left Tokyo for Hong Kong. I decided to find out the source of all these clips and put them in glass bottles in our stores for customers to choose. It's a tiny little project which may take time to get done but it is just plain fun.

17 Clips on Heavy Duty Moleskine, without name cards

Now that I got all these clips and want to make them handy, putting them in my pen case won't work, so a natural place is to put them on my Moleskine combo (soft cover 18 month diary + blank notebook, secured by 2 clips between them).

What the Hell is this For?

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Errr... one of the clip you see in the above picture is used for price tag holder in many Japanese stationery stores, somehow I love it and put it on my M combo cover. Yeah what the hell is that doing on a notebook you asked? I don't know, someday I'll find good use of it :)

Clips in Polaroid Picture on Clip on Moleskine

So here I'm, everyday carrying my favorite M and all these clips. The last picture I took for this trip was a Polaroid photo on these clips outside Narita airport showing here in addition to the digital one I took. The picture reminds me of this rewarding trip a lot.

On the other hand, do visit Tadashi Tsuchihashi san's web site Pen-info. He is a well-known stationery commentator in Japan, I had a privilege to meet him and had dinner with him amoung several stationery vendors, both of us find passion in stationery and update our encounters on blog. Here's an entry he wrote about our meeting. I will talk about him more in upcoming posts.

Oh BTW, if you are wondering what that little camera is, it is actually a lighter using zippo fluid made in Japan. It looks like a very classic Leica III camera isn't it.