The Atlanta Pen Show and Pen Addict Episode #200

4/18/16 • 5 min read

This post was originally posted on April 19, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

A little over a year ago, I started listening to the Upgrade podcast with Jason Snell and Myke Hurley on the Relay FM network. I knew all about Jason from listening to the Incomparable and reading his work on Macworld. I loved the show and the banter between Myke and Jason. But best of all, it introduced me to selection of other podcasts on Relay FM and the Incomparable.

One of these shows was the Pen Addict, hosted by Myke and Brad Dowdy. I tuned in for episode #152, just after the 2015 Atlanta Pen Show. Ironically, the topic was mechanical pencils. I was hooked and I’ve been listening weekly ever since. (I’ve also been buying pens and pencils ever since…)

When the 2016 Atlanta Pen Show rolled around, I knew I had to go. Brad lives near Atlanta and Myke flies in from London for the show. This year, they recorded the 200th episode of the Pen Addict live in front of an audience.

My wife joined me on the (reasonably easy) trek down I-20 from Columbia. I always make Liz listen to podcasts on long trips and she wanted to put faces with the voices she’d heard.*

We spent Saturday at the show and attended the episode recording that evening. It was a wonderful experience and we may have to make the Atlanta Pen Show an annual tradition. I figured I share some thoughts on the experience of attending the Atlanta Pen Show and Pen Addict live broadcast:

The Atlanta Pen Show

It’s a little bit overwhelming for a first time visitor. All the vendors were exceptionally nice and willing to answer questions.** But there are just so many pens. Three large rooms with tables and vendors everywhere. New and vintage. Inexpensive and very, very expensive. Stock and custom. Inks, nib grinders, cases, paper and more. (Several vendors noted that the D.C. Pen Show is much bigger and crazier.) I enjoyed it, but it was a lot to take in and absorb. I’ve only been buying pens for about a year and I’ve got a lot to learn.

I got to check out pens I’ve never seen. There isn’t a pen store in Columbia so I rarely have a chance to check out nice fountain pens in person. But there is a great selection at the Atlanta Pen Show. I fell in love with the Pilot Vanishing Point. I got to check out some Lamys that I haven’t had a chance to hold… a Lamy 2000, a Studio and even an Imporium. The Karas Kustoms clipless Ink is also a beauty. I definitely prefer the cleaner, more minimalist designs.

I didn’t buy a pen. I almost bought a Pilot Vanishing Point — green, of course — but decided to wait. And I was tempted by a Lamy Studio. I must have circled the Anderson Pens table a dozen times. I’m looking at more expensive pens and these pens aren’t an impulse buy. Instead I bought some ink from Vanness Pens, a Nock Fodderstack XL and some notepads to try.

I’m terrified of vintage pens. I love the idea of vintage pens, but I was overwhelmed by the selection. I had no idea what I was looking at. I’ll need to do a fair amount of research before I feel comfortable investing in a classic design.

The Pen Addict’s 200th Episode

Friendly folks. Myke and Brad were joined on the episode by Ana Reinert from the Well-Appointed Desk. Stephen Hackett from Liftoff and Connected came down to run the technical side of the broadcast. They were all very approachable and made an effort to talk to everyone. (I even got an impromptu review of Myke’s new nylon Apple Watch band.) It’s nice to find out that the people that you listen to every week are really as awesome as they seem on the podcast.

Watching the Pen Addict live was amazing. Being able to see how Myke, Brad and Ana interact on the show was wonderful. It was like a couple of friends just talking about pens… with a bunch of spectators and a whole lot of technology.

Thanks for all the hard work. It’s got to be hard to record a podcast every week and not really know what people think. This show ended with a standing ovation and tears from Brad and Ana. I didn’t really think about it until that moment, but I’m glad we as an audience got to let Brad and Myke know — in person — how much we appreciate the show. I really do look forward to it each week.

I won a door prize. Which probably doesn’t come as a surprise to those who know me well.*** Ana donated an awesome prize pack with a bottle of green Pilot Iroshizuku ink, a notepad for work****, a stamp, a magic pencil, some limited edition XOXO Field Notes and some wicked chocolate that was not melted. Thanks, Ana! I’ll put it all to good use.

Liz and I had a great time. If our schedule permits, we’ll absolutely head down to Atlanta for the 2017 edition. (April is always a busy time of year for us, though.) If you are interested in pens and writing utensils, attending a pen show is a great way to check out your options if you don’t have a pen store near you.

* She was disappointed that Jason Snell and Serenity Caldwell weren’t there. I told her Jason would never attend a pen show.

** There was one pushy dude who was kind of obnoxious.

*** I win a lot of door prizes. It all started when I won a jet ski in 7th grade…

**** My wife was disappointed that she can’t take it to her work, but a notepad with the “s-word” on it won’t fly in kindergarten. I, however, love it.

Change.

3/30/16 • 3 min read

This post was originally posted on March 31, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

Last week, I talked to an advertising class at the University of South Carolina. One of the things I mentioned was the need to stay up-to-date on the changes in the communications industry.

In preparing for my talk, I started a list of the things that have changed during my career — roughly 20 years of being a creative professional.*

The list was really, really long. I’ve included a couple of links for all the really obscure stuff:

• Aldus Pagemaker became Adobe Pagemaker. Then was gone.
• Quark Xpress was everywhere. Adobe InDesign arrived. Then Quark was gone.
• Individual Adobe applications became the Creative Suite bundle. And then the Creative Cloud suite.
• Apple was dying. Now Apple is everywhere.
• PDF.
• Bitmap fonts. Adobe Postscript Type 1 fonts. TrueType. Open Type.
• The Internet became a thing.
• Email became a thing. Followed by HTML Email. And spam.
• Netscape rises. Internet Explorer kills Netscape. Internet Explorer is awful and dies a slow and painful death.
• Web 2.0 (Which if we are honest, isn’t really different than Web 1.0.)
• Standards-based web design. Javascript. CSS.
• The search engine.
• Social media. All of it. MySpace. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Flickr. Instagram. Vine. Google+. Snapchat. Periscope. Meerkat. And lord knows how many more failures I’ve forgotten about.
• Macromedia Flash. Adobe Flash. Who needs Flash?
• Streaming video. Real Player. Quicktime. YouTube.
• Floppy disks. SyQuest 44. SyQuest 88. Zip. Zip 250. Jaz. CD-R. Flash drive. Cloud storage.
• DVD. Blu-Ray.
• Avid. Premiere. Final Cut. Final Cut X. Premiere.
• Blogging.
• Powerpoint. Sigh.
• Digital photography arrives. Eventually becomes affordable. And now we have camera phones.
• Royalty-free stock photography CDs. Replaced by websites when bandwidth gets fast enough.
• TV has completely changed. Standard Definition. High Definition. 3-D. Now Ultra HD.
• The smartphone. Palm and BlackBerry rise. iPhone and Android kill them.
• Mobile apps.
• Responsive design.
• Wacom Tablets.
• iPads and other tablets.
• eBooks and Kindles.
• Black and white screens. Hundreds of colors. Thousands of colors. Millions of colors. Retina displays.
• Short-run digital printing.
• Bluelines and photographic platemaking gets replaced with much more efficient computerized versions. (But I still I miss the smell of bluelines.)
• The eternal promise of variable data printing.

All of this change and disruption occurred in such a short period of time. And this is just in one industry. My interest in design started when I was in college in the mid-1990s at the beginning of all this change. The designers and communicators that are thriving today are the ones that are able to change and adapt constantly.

Looking ahead at the next 20 years, the only thing I’m 100% sure of is that the world isn’t going to get less complex. For designers and communicators, the ability to evolve and adapt is going to be more critical to success than ever.

* I seriously feel old.

The kitchen sink

3/7/16 • 3 min read

This post was originally posted on March 8, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

My garbage disposal started leaking last week. And considering how old it is, I needed to replace it. Badly.

So I went to the store to pick up a new garbage disposal… and decided that if I was going to take out the disposal, now would be a perfect time to replace a leaky faucet, too. And while I was at it, maybe I should replace the kitchen sink. All of these things needed doing and if I was going to do one of them, it made sense to tackle them all. (Keeping in mind, of course, that I’ve never replaced a faucet or a sink before…)

After many hours and several trips to the store, the kitchen is back together and everything works.

The process was challenging. I wanted to quit repeatedly. More than a few choice words were spoken. My hands are torn up. My shoulder hurts.

But now it’s done. I’m proud of the work. I’m glad I did it. It looks much better than the old sink. The disposal and faucet don’t leak. Even though it took longer than I expected, it was worth the investment of time and energy.

I chose a harder, but more ambitious path. And as I struggled, I questioned my decision. I was frustrated and bruised. My confidence wavered. I wondered if I could turn back the clock and undo the initial decision to tackle a massively challenging project.* And it was only in the end that you see if the effort was truly worth it.

This is true in home improvement. But it’s also completely true with relationships, design, parenting and just about everything. We take on big responsibilities. We struggle. We lose confidence. We want to quit. We question our decisions and assumptions. We lose sight of the big goal. And unlike my kitchen sink, sometimes these big picture challenges take more than just a Sunday afternoon. They require investments of months and years.

I’m often guilty of losing sight of the big goal. It’s easy to get caught up with the challenges and frustrations. To convince myself that I’ll never overcome the barriers in front of me. I personally need to be better about keeping the battle in perspective. And most of all, I need to stay focused on why I started the journey in the first place.

* Seriously, at that point, time travel seemed a more rational path forward. It wasn’t going well.