
My Life in Pens (2009) - tosh
https://iamjamesward.com/2009/08/18/my-life-in-pens-part-1/
======
ftio
Love this. I too have had a passion for stationery for most of my life. To
give you a sense of the kind of kid I was: Staples was my favorite store from
ages 9-12.

I've been through gel pens and rollerballs and felt tips and every variation
therein and thereof. Today, there's only one pen for me (sort of), and that's
the Pilot G2. It's smooth, dries quickly on the pages of my always-around
Leuchtturm1917 medium, gridded, softcover book, and retains its blackness for
years. Notes written ten years ago look as good and as new as notes written
ten days ago.

That said, I've been dabbling in the world of fountain pens and fancy inks
(Noodler's is awesome) for some time, and though the writing experience is
outstanding, I grew tired of walking around with ink-covered hands, leaving my
pen home when I fly (which is often), and waiting too long for ink to dry in
my notebook.

So back to the G2 I go, as always.

~~~
ehrtt
So not to get completely crazy here but about 5 years ago I settled on the
Leuchtturm1917 medium, dot grid, softcover notebook + the Pilot Better
Retractable ballpoint pen (black, 30000). It's a nice place to be if you want
to consider a finer point and a freer page.

~~~
lb1lf
Considering the near uniform praise I see for Leuchtturm’s offerings both here
and elsewhere, I think I’ll give them a go next time I need to stock up on
writing materials. (Go-to notebooks for ages has been Moleskine squared
hardcover small ones for the field, Rhodia dotted A5 for the office.)

For field work (workshops and offshore) either a pencil or a Fisher Space Pen
does it; office? Mostly a fountain pen, a habit kick started when I was five
or so and my grandfather gave me an old fountain pen and told me I’d better
learn to write using one, as that would teach me how to write properly. I’m
not convinced he was right, but it nevertheless started a life-long love
affair with fountain pens...

~~~
ftio
I used Moleskines in college but haven’t looked back since finding Leuchtterm
(almost 10 years ago). I love the numbered pages and softer covers, but the
best part is that the lines are MUCH lighter. You won’t regret switching.

~~~
lb1lf
Numbered pages is a plus, but I’ve found the Moleskines to be brilliant field
companions - there’s always one in my boiler suit’s breast pocket, and no
matter how wet it has become, be it rain, seas or hydraulic oil, no matter how
greased and dirty my fingers have been, the notebook holds up. I don’t think
I’ll ever use anything else for jotting down notes while offshore.

My local dealer stocks Leuchtturms too; I’ll pick up a few next week.

------
dchuk
I was a life long pen and paper freak for all of my notes for personal and
professional life.

My goto setup was the Pilot G2 0.38mm pen:
[https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/527870/Pilot-G-2-Retr...](https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/527870/Pilot-G-2-Retractable-
Gel-Pens/)

And the Leuchterm 1917 dotted notebook:
[https://www.leuchtturm1917.us/notebook-
medium-a5-hardcover-2...](https://www.leuchtturm1917.us/notebook-
medium-a5-hardcover-249-numbered-pages.html)

The pens have perfect flow, and are thin in stroke for precision work. The
paper has a nice texture to it, not rough but not slick.

For quick work, I'd grab sharpies and computer paper, for stuff like quick UI
sketches/rapid note taking.

But as of April this year, I've switched to the 2018 iPad and an Apple Pencil
and have completely dropped using paper. Being able to find all of my notes on
both my ipad and my computer, sketch things up when I'm traveling and send it
to my coworkers quickly, and also have all my books and media all in one
simple device is just a dream. And in iOS 12, the Notes app is actually pretty
great.

It's also a great setup for sketching up ideas to then toss on an Apple TV to
share with my team before investing time into making a polished version of
something. Idea to presentation in minutes is just awesome.

My only two complaints:

1) the body of the apple pencil is shitty. It's slick and round, I'd prefer a
hexagonal body with a textured finger pad and a nice textured surface. This
has annoyed me enough to the point that I've actually looked into how to make
an alternative barrel for the pencils.

2) I take all of my notes in outline form. I would LOVE an app that captures
handwritten notes in outline form, but then adds interactivity like
collapsing/handwriting to text conversion/etc while preserving all the format.
I realize that's a hard problem to solve, but I'm hoping in a few years
machine learning will catch up.

~~~
benjaminjackman
I just made a practically identical switch (down to even the 0.38mm g-2 pens).

What apps have you been using on iPad for note taking? I have tried several
and haven't found anything that would fit what I am looking for. The best I
have found is Good Notes.

~~~
benjaminjackman
Edit: I forgot to mention In terms of the Apple Pencil body being too slick, I
picked this up on Amazon
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LY38UE5/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LY38UE5/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
It's not quite perfect but it's a lot better than vanilla and has a magnet
that attached it to the iPad as well.

~~~
dchuk
Nice, I've almost ordered one of those in the past. My idea was to actually
remove the original body of the pencil and have a better one 3d printed for
it. The cost/effort is probably completely not worth it, but it does look
feasible per the teardown looking fairly straight forward.

------
taeric
"All these things make me unhappy. But why? Stationery is supposed to be used.
They’re functional objects. It is my tragedy."

I love that quote. I have the same problem with notebooks. For some reason I'm
convinced that you have to do a perfect job when you are filling out a
notebook. Even though, logically, that doesn't make any sense. People that do
perfect things typically have practiced more throwing away things than I would
consider likely.

~~~
DanBC
It might be worthing buying a notebook with the intention of ripping out pages
and scribbling nonsense in it.

The crossed out bits are the most important part of the notebook.

------
maroonblazer
Over the last several years I've aspired to improve my sketching/drawing
skills so this post caught my eye. It's the first of 3 and this one focuses
solely on "pens" he used as a child. Parts 2 & 3 are more germane to my
circumstances.

I like his writing style - his "voice" \- and so poked around some of the
other articles and, wow, what a feast! Interesting topics and the perfect
length for my increasingly ADD-addled brain. Not to mention the design of blog
is quite well-done (perhaps it's a WP template though...?)

I'd not heard of James Ward before but he's now on my reading list.

Thanks for sharing!

~~~
RBerenguel
He has a book “Adventures in Stationery”. Sitting around my home office,
started but not finished (too much travel on my side)

------
zasz
Kinda surprised no fountain pens were part of the journey.

~~~
avcdsuia
I have always loved fountain pens. But I am currently using a mechanical
pencil(Staedtler 925-25-05) only. I guess fountain pens are not suitable for
note taking and drafting and maintenance makes using them a luxury for me.
Mechanical pencils provide fewer options but still a great joy of writing
experience(but nowhere near a proper gold nib pen).

------
bitofhope
Pens and pencils are a favourite topic of mine. Since the article is mostly
about cheap mass market ballpoints, I'll take the liberty to mention some of
my favourites too.

* Uni-Ball Jetstream: Just about perfect as far as I'm concerned. Comfortable, ubiquitous and works every time. Stylish, yet unassuming.

* Ballograf Epoca: Very common in the Nordics. My favourite specimen has a light metal barrel (aluminium, I assume) with what seems like a rosewood grip and button. Most ones are plainer with plastic barrels in retro colours. A design classic with refills easily available in craft and hardware stores.

* Parker Insignia: A slightly fancier one, though not really a true luxury pen. I inherited a couple of these from my grandma who always had a good eye for stationery. One is a half of a matching set with a mechanical pencil, in aluminium and brass. The other is branded paraphernalia for a facility maintenance company she was doing printing work for.

* UNIX Ballpoint: The only one of these I don't have on my desk at the moment. Nothing really notable about this one but hey, it's made by Unix. How could I not like a Unix pen?

------
amelius
Waiting for a "my life in keyboards" post ...

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Pencils for me. Hi Uni HB is what is mostly use. There’s just something about
writing using something made of only three natural things. This pencil isn’t
cheap either.

------
jszymborski
My favourite pen to date is the Zebra Sarasa[0]. It's a gel pen, but it really
doesn't smear and 0.7mm nib means you're still writing sufficiently sharp.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Zebra-
Pen-46871-Retractable-10-Count/...](https://www.amazon.com/Zebra-
Pen-46871-Retractable-10-Count/dp/B0047EPFDC)

------
stevep98
This reminded me of an old website from about 10+ years ago. The guy would
review artist pens, and would include a drawing of the pen, and whatever else
he felt like that day.

Really nice website. I enjoyed reading it, does anyone remember what it was?

------
grawprog
I'm pretty sure 90% of the pens i've ever used or owned were bic. I'm not sure
if i've ever really used berol pens. My writing's pretty messy so I've looked
for a couple decent pens for my notebooks and such but that's about it. I like
anything where the ink doesn't run and that helps me write more clearly. Some
pens are definitely better than others.

That Wikipedia article about crayon colours though....the author wasn't
lying...that is an amazingly detailed list with hex and rgb values for just
about every crayon ever made. The standard colours also have hsv values and
there's detailed history for everything. It makes me want to setup a bunch of
colour palettes based on all the different crayon sets.

