When I was a kid, my one of my favorite times of the year was back to school. It was a glorious combination of my two favorite things –a perfect storm for a material obsessed youth –new clothes and new school supplies. Clearly I have not made any headway with either of these obsessions. My clothing fixations have been documented many times here on ACL, but my office supply bug has so far remained dormant, until now at least. I went through my top two left-hand desk drawers to show you some of the things that make me happy.
Below is a Mnemosyne “To-Do” pad that was purchased from Kate’s Paperie in SoHo. The pocket sized flip- book is printed in a special style to facilitate creating and accomplishing To-Dos. Mnemosyne (which is the name of the ancient Greek goddess of memory) is made by a Japanese company called Maruman.
A must own for any guy is a silver letter opener with initials engraved into the handle. The opener pictured below is sort of cheap and has been bent from being used to pry batteries out of the remote control and other non-letter related mischievousness.
Basic writing instruments. I never caught on to the fancy pen thing but I am glad that it is still an option for me to further explore at a later point in my life. I like to use the Parker Jotter and will often have it in my suit pocket. Pictured below is the classic Bic 4-color selectable pen (that is still made in France) along with a professional grade black Sharpie marker, Bic yellow pen highlighter and a Energel .7 mm pen by Pentel.
Below: one of my all time favorite acquisitions, the Garrett Wade Power Clipper with Weiss 16 mm clips. I use the Power Clipper to affix business cards and hand written notes to proposals and reports. This little bit of detailing adds a unique touch to a business document.
Below: purchased from Industries Stationery on Crosby Street is a box of 12 small black notebooks. The group of pads are meant to be a one year supply of white pages. All of the books having a unique number of punched holes to signify the 12 calender months. The set cost about $35.
Another Garrett Wade product, the all metal Personal Stapler in black. In addition to the nice looking stapler, pictured below are a box of Swingline S.F. 4 Premium Staples. I cannot tolerate misformed staples and these premium staples keep that to a minimum. Definitely worth the extra few dollars to prevent that frustration.
Below: small note pads from Industries Stationery. The color options are terrific.
Below: Acco Regal Clips No. 3 and manilla paper tags.
Below: the Fisher Space Pen. Designed for NASA so astronauts could write in a gravity free environment, these pens are the perfect size to carry around in your jeans pocket.
The Reporter’s Notebooks are great for day to day use around the office. They work good for meetings and taking notes on phone calls.
Below: The classic brown paper pocket size Moleskine notebooks. I prefer these to the more popular larger hard-bound versions.
Muji is a great resource for simple non-branded merchandise. I am obviously drawn to anything made from craft paper like these CD / DVD cases and the tiny card and envelope sets seen below.
I love office supplies, too. There is something deeply satisfying about using objects that are well designed and very utilitarian. My favorite desk accessory is my clear Muji tape dispenser. I never tire of seeing it on my desktop.
As a kid, I always was in awe of my mother’s address book. Louis Vuitton from the ’70s…nice. Even nicer: she only wrote in it (in perfect cursive) with brown pen. I tried to adopt the same aesthetic for all my office notes, but I end up throwing those brown pens in random purses and never have any handy. The same thing goes for my other officy obsessions, graph paper and the classic yellow pencil.
i LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE office supplies/artsupplies/school supplies… and totally kn ow what u mean about back to school weekend… p.s. i share ur feeling for moleskine sketch/notebooks!
office supplies make me very happy.
Where in the world do you find the Regal clips No. 3? I couldn’t even find them on the Acco web site.
Re the Weiss Power Clipper: I can’t figure out how to load it, and it came with no instructions. Garrett Wade no longer carries the item.
(I just opened a box from them that had got shunted aside for a year.)
Can anyone help?
All web searches have been fruitless.
BTW, I really appreciate the photography and taste level of your site. I’ve subscribed.
Disregard the previous post. I finally figured the Power Clipper out.
But Weiss still out to print the instructions on the back of the box!