Atelier Winsonli

Gave the owl a Christmas hat, scarf and boot to celebrate.

I had to use this birthday coupon this month, so I paid MUJI a visit.

And I got a two drawer acrylic cabinet and a velour tray to hold my new pen. My stationery are much more organized now.

In the top drawer is my monthly planner and two Rhodia notepads. In the bottom one is a velour tray holding a Lamy 2000. In the pen case is my Lamy Safari collection.

I also took pictures of the Lamy 2000. When I was looking through the pictures I took, I noticed a lot of imperfections on the pen. I tried to calm myself, saying that the nib section is handmade so there must be some kind of flaws.

MUJI has a lot of new stuff for Christmas. A lot of wooden toys and stuff which makes a perfect gift. Took a few catalogs when leaving.

I have bought too much ink recently. This is the last one I’ll get in these three months I hope. Montblanc just called to let me know the 2008 seasonal greetings ink has arrived.

Anyway, I was looking for a blue which does not have traces of purple in it. After reading some posts on Fountain Pen Network, I decided to get this Visconti blue. I filled my Lamy 2000 with this ink and I was impressed when a pure blue line was laid onto paper.

From left to right: Lamy blue, Cartier blue, Visconti blue. Lamy blue is in cartridge. As you can see, the Visconti ink is much more vibrant.

I’ll post about my Lamy 2000 when I spend more time with it.

My entry won the Excellence Award for the competition. There is no champion and second runner ups, so that is the highest honor award. Three teams also got the award.

The award was presented today. I received a nice waterman ballpoint pen and some bookstore cash vouchers as prize. Gave an impromptu speech on my design. Acceptable I think, considering the lack of preparation.

Also learned that there is a Web 2.0 Technologies course held next semester. Would sign up if I can. Have to check the course details.

Cartier Blue ink for my about to come pen. I’ve ordered an extra fine nib Lamy 2000 and should get it tomorrow. That salesman said it is a good pen. Would talk more of it later plus update this post with scan of the ink in action.

Got a bit bored of the Lamy Turquoise so tried this Montblanc Bordeaux. I love the color, but sometimes it looks more like the color of grape juice than red wine. Anyway, there’s one problem with it. It looks a bit strange if I write a whole paragraph in this color. I’ll use it for writing notes on lecture materials.

Image from Lamy. After receiving my assignments which were marked with fountain pens, I wanted to get a better fountain pen. I have a several Lamy Safaris, but they have steel nibs and the line thickness won’t vary with writing pressure. This Lamy 2000 is their flagship product, having a platinum coated 14K gold nib. I think I’ll get one when I deserve a decent fountain pen.

I’ve always been using Rhodia notepads to keep my ideas organized. Lately, I’ve been working on a redesign of my personal homepage and have been using the notepads quite often. After using about 40 pages, I encountered a problem. The notepad won’t stay open for me to write on as the pages won’t fold back. I usually tear off pages to solve the problem, but this time I can’t as I need to frequently refer back to previous notes.

Then there is a second problem. Each time I need to write, I need to dig deep into my bag to look for a pen. I wanted a way to hold a pen together with a Rhodia notepad.

Yesterday, I found a solution. I bought this Midori clip on pen holder from Log On.

They come in two sizes and two colors, small and medium, in black or brown. I got the medium one, and it just fits my MUJI gel ink pen. The pen is a narrow one, about the thickness of a pencil. I wonder what pens could fit into the small sized one. (Update: For the small sized one, you insert the pen’s clip into the loop. I’ve read it from kobucha blog.)

The pen holder beautifully holds a pen besides the notepad, solving the pen problem. But then, there’s also the difficulty of keeping the notepad open.

By clipping the pen holder on the flipped open pages, it acts as a paperweight to keep the fold down. Now I can write comfortably.

If you look closely into the above picture, there is a yellow tag on the page. I use that as a bookmarking system to mark important notes. The tags are from MUJI and a set includes five colors. I have my own coloring scheme, indicating high priority stuff, to-dos, etc.

I keep the tags on the back of the notepads, so they are handy each time I need them.

A good solution to keep track of ideas should be simple, just as this one. It makes my work efficient and the planning process fun. I spend more time on paper, so when I sit at the computer I get my work done almost instantly.