Writing tools, the old fashion way

O.K., I admit it, I love beautiful objects and especially well crafted objects created with passion and perfectionism. I’m a big fan of Apple products, I’m dreaming of a Porsche and my all-time favourite cameras are made by Leica. None of these things are a necessity for anybody, you just want them. Period. They provide a high level of pleasure and satisfaction when you use them. And when they’re not use I still look at them with amazement and a sense of respect for those who passionately produce state of the art things.

I’ve been using computers for about 25 years now (Don’t you know what 300 bauds are? Hummm.. You never used the command line to connect to the internet? Never heard of netmail and echomail, or BBS and batch files?) and most of the things I do are made electronically: searching, emailing, learning, playing, watching and, of course, writing. And I do a lot of that every single day of the week. But there is one more thing I don’t really use often but absolutely want to have: pens. I love pens for what they are, a utility but a little piece of art at the same time. I rarely write anything by hand, but I’ve always liked collecting pens, quality pens. I won’t go crazy for it, but if I see a really nice pen in the store, the idea of owning it will come to mind for sure. Porsche Design pens are among the ones I prefer. They’re not super expensive tools, but the design speaks to me, as well as the material they use to produce them.

Writing tools have been a main topic recently on this blog. Of course I was talking about apps and software used on the Mac and iOS devices. I thought it would be interesting to also mention the writing tools we still use the old fashion way. I think it’s interesting to remember that many people still use a pen almost 100% of the time, while others almost never use them. Personally, my love for nice pens also comes with nice paper and the classic Moleskine notebooks moleskine. Well, you know these are just like note taking apps (Simplenote, Evernote, etc.), except you can hold and touch them. It might sound vintage, but I find it’s a great feeling to write on paper. There really is something special with writing on paper. It feels so “true”. Now, allow me to make a parallel here with photographs. Seeing them on screen is great. But there is nothing like holding a final print on a Fine Art sheet of paper. We speak a lot these days, and we should feel more often. Even better, we should touch more, for real. Isn’t the expression “I’m touched” so appropriate for describing something in which we are truly emotionally involved?

Let get busy.. and true.

Everything can be so artificial these days, I strongly believe in things (and people) that are “genuine”. I’m not going to change the world, but I can certainly change MY world. And I will continue to aim for the best in everything I buy and do. The results are not guaranteed to be perfection, but the determination I have certainly is. Trying to make things the best you can will always lead to improvement. And knowing the devil is in the details, don’t cut the corners, be perfectionist and passionate. As they say, garbage in, garbage out.

And in case you’d like to know, the pens you see on the photograph above are (from left to right) Fisher Bullet Space Pen, Faber-Castell Porsche Design TecFlex & Porsche Design P’3100. Not appearing on this photo is also a Lamy fountain pen I really liked but apparently lost when I moved from Montreal. I think I’m going to start looking for a replacement.. Did you ever use a fountain pen? A good one for use on quality paper provides a wonderful experience. But they are expansive.

In the meantime, if you hesitate between a real pen and the keyboard of your computer, here’s an option that fits right in the middle: a stylus for you iPad! :-)

Good Light!

Norm

© Normand Primeau