Field Notes Colors: Shelterwood

April 6, 2017

I’m continuing on my journey to write about every quarterly edition of Field Notes that I have, with a few exceptions. Last time, I wrote about Cold Horizon, and I’m choosing Shelterwood next, which was the next seasonal edition right after Cold Horizon. As usual, I’ll talk about the major “first” features in Shelterwood, with my own opinions mixed in, and end with a list of specifications and links.

Shelterwood came out in spring of 2014, and was the 22nd release of the Field Notes quarterly edition series. It was a very popular edition, and if I remember correctly, it sold out within just a few months. At the time, Field Notes said it was one of the fastest selling editions ever, along with Raven’s Wing and Night Sky. They must have been pretty confident that Shelterwood would do well, because they also made Cherry Graph, a very close cousin of Shelterwood, at the same time and introduced it later as a standard, open-ended edition.

I received Shelterwood as part of my COLORS subscription. I agree with many Field Notes fans: Shelterwood is a solid edition. It’s visually simple but has enough special features – like thick, off-white interior paper, ruling in soft green lines, gold staples, and real wood cover – that make it a very beautiful, tactile edition. The wood cover makes me want to keep touching it, and, along with Cherry Graph, Shelterwood has become one of the “easier” options whenever I want to choose the next Field Notes to use.

The cover in Shelterwood tends to curl open more than other editions. It can be a bit annoying at times but Field Notes has never laid flat for me anyway (open or closed).

The “Ghost Flower” white ink on the uncoated cover can look barely there at certain angles..

.. and more visible at others. I really like how this ink looks like it’s just sitting on the surface.

Firsts (and seconds)

Shelterwood was the first Field Notes COLORS edition, and the only one so far, to have a real wood cover. American Cherry wood from Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin, to be more specific. Their Shelterwood page and film (a must watch) describe this much better than I can but basically, the wood is very thinly sliced into sheets and then bonded to brown kraft paper (you can see the kraft paper on the inside cover). I remember seeing stationery companies using thin sheets of wood for some time before Shelterwood came out, in the form of postcards and greeting cards, for example, so I wasn’t terribly surprised or impressed when Shelterwood was first announced. But I was amazed Field Notes was able to make the cover so pliable and durable. Field Notes said they were the first notebook company to manufacture such a product at a large scale. Whether that’s true or not, the result is still noteworthy. At first I was afraid the wood grain would splinter or chip off at the edges over time, but I haven’t had any issues (I’m pretty gentle with my notebooks in general though). Some books came with some tiny bits of wood missing on the spine but it hasn’t gotten any worse with use. Bryan Bedell (of Field Notes) mentioned that he carried Shelterwood in his back pocket for a few months in order to test the durability of the cover (listen to the excellent Erasable Podcast episode #28, at about 57 minutes in).

The 70#T body paper in Shelterwood feels great, too. Although it’s not a requirement for me, I appreciate the thicker weight for versatility (for both gel pens and fountain pens), and I really enjoy writing on it, especially with the off-white color and muted green ruled lines. By the way, Shelterwood is the 3rd Colors edition to get the 70#T paper, after Traveling Salesman from Fall 2012 (Mohawk Via Smooth), and America the Beautiful one year before Shelterwood. Shelterwood actually uses the same paper stock used in America the Beautiful: Finch Paper Fine in “Soft White”. That makes Shelterwood the second in the Colors series to get off-white innards. Black Ice, from winter 2016, also uses Finch Paper Fine 70# but in “Bright White” color.

A quick off-white innards comparison, from top: Ambition, Shelterwood, America the Beautiful, Workshop Companion, and Original Graph.

Gold staples and white ink on wood cover

Other features in Shelterwood that are not “firsts” in the quarterly editions but still noteworthy: gold staples and 1/4” ruled lines. Drink Local (Fall 2013) was the first edition with gold staples, and America the Beautiful (again!) was the first to get ruled lines, making Shelterwood 2nd. I think the gold staples were a great (perhaps an obvious) choice for Shelterwood, since they complement the warmth of the wood cover so well. As for the ruling, I don’t mind it at all. I use graph grid a lot but there are times when I miss writing in ruled notebooks, and Shelterwood has been a good option at such times.

Some Field Notes with ruled lines (clockwise from top right): Black Ice, Shelterwood, America the Beautiful, Arts & Sciences (the Arts book), and Original Ruled.

The green on the belly band matches the green ruling on the innards. It goes really well with the wood color in my opinion.

Considering the interior paper, it might be easy to group Shelterwood together with America the Beautiful. But to me they have vastly different personalities, and that is in no doubt due to Shelterwood’s real wood cover. I really enjoy its texture, how the grain shows through the white ink, and how each cover has a unique pattern. But it’s not just the fact that it’s made out of wood that impresses me. Field Notes decided to keep the overall design simple and classy, with just a few accents, and it has great innards to boot. Shelterwood is one of those editions that I can’t help but like (and appreciate) more and more over the years. It’s not one of my top 10 favorites, not because there are things I dislike about it but because there are so many editions that I’m more drawn to. Just like America the Beautiful, I suspect Shelterwood will fluctuate constantly in that difficult range between #11 and #20 in my Field Notes ranking.

Some Field Notes with gold staples (from top): Drink Local, Shelterwood, Cherry Graph, Ambition, and Capsule (SS 2016).

Love how the mossy green “Twilight Sage” ink looks almost soft gray on the kraft paper.

Some fun (for me) details

Shelterwood is the 2014 spring edition of COLORS, the 22nd in the series.
Item number: FNC-22
Price: $9.95/pack of 3 books
Edition size: 25,000 packs, or 75,000 books, March 2014. Cold Horizon, the previous edition, was 20,000 packs.
Printed by: Burke Printing in Lake Forest, Il.
Cover: Graphic Wood Technologies PureVeneer cherry wood veneer, bound to brown kraft paper, printed with “Ghost Flower” white
Inside cover: brown kraft paper printed with text in “Twilight Sage” green soy-based Toyo ink
Body paper: Finch Paper Fine 70#T in “Soft White”, same as America the Beautiful
Ruled lines inside (1/4"): “Maidenhair” light green soy-based Toyo ink
Edition-specific extras: none
Belly band: off-white paper with background printed in matching light green ink
Staples color: gold
Teaser image in “A Note to Colors Subscribers” email: a photo of a Northern Wisconsin sunset.
Film: Field Notes Brand: The Shelterwood Edition on Vimeo ⬅︎⬅︎⬅︎ must watch
Film: FN - Recap 2014 on Vimeo ⬅︎⬅︎⬅︎ this too

Field Notes with wood: Starbucks Roastery Edition (with birch) on the left, Cherry Graph and Shelterwood on the right, both with cherry wood. The Shenandoah belly band on the top also features birch veneer.

My Favorite “Practical Applications”

#10. Flannels Inventoried
#11. Carbons Dated
#25. Maple Syrup Tasted
#30. Legendary Splinters

A few more suggested applications in the Shelterwood announcement email from Field Notes:

Pegboard Tool Organization Schema
eBay Listing Inventory for All That Crap in the Garage
Things Everyone Loves That Are Totally Overrated

Stationery Shopping in Tokyo: Inkstand by Kakimori

March 29, 2017

Inkstand by Kakimori is a small fountain pen ink store in the Kuramae neighborhood of Tokyo, where you can custom-mix ink colors. I wrote about Kakimori, the parent shop of Inkstand, in this post if you’d like to read about it first.

Mr. Three Staples and I didn’t take many pictures inside the store at Inkstand because we were both preoccupied with ink mixing. I’m making it up with plenty of pictures of inks bottles we made, but as in the Kakimori post, I’ll mostly talk about our custom ink making process and the overall shopping experience. This post will not be a review of the inks themselves.

Side note on the shop name: I’m not completely sure if their official name is Inkstand or Ink Stand. I’ve seen examples of both, especially over at Kakimori’s website, but I’ll go with what Inkstand's website uses.

The Shop

Inkstand is located right next to Kakimori. It went through a brief hiatus last year but reopened in late 2016 with a new set of inks. We happened to be in Tokyo right after it reopened (thanks to Cindy for the heads up), and made a reservation (required) for a weekday afternoon.

I should mention right here that the inks they now use are pigment-based, not dye-based, which means they’re more water-resistant but can potentially clog up your pens if you’re not careful. Before the shop renewal, they used Private Reserve inks, but currently their inks are from Turner, a Japanese paint company.

Inside, Inkstand is a fairly small, straightforward space. You’ll see a long counter along the right side, and behind it is where the shop assistants will prepare your custom ink. Overall the shop felt airier and more modern-looking than Kakimori. You could say it had a laboratory vibe, with a shiny white counter and lots of glass bottles and beakers. Not to mention glass vials lined up along the right wall. The tall counter is where you work on your ink formulas standing up. Mr. Three Staples and I were the only customers during our reservation; I don’t recall exactly but I think the counter had space for 3–4 people. Later a group of tourists walked in but they were politely turned away.

The Process

On the counter was everything we needed to create our custom inks, or “order inks” as they call them. Each person’s workstation had: a set of base color inks in dropper bottles, a pad of paper, a glass dip pen, a glass rod for stirring, a stack of tiny plastic cups for mixing, a large beaker filled with water for rinsing, some napkins, a laminated color chart, and of course instructions. Basically, you create your own blend by determining the ratio of base colors that produces the color you desire. You do that by dispensing base colors, drop by drop, into the small plastic cup, mixing well with the glass rod, and then testing the result on the pad of paper with the glass dip pen. Your formula can can include up to 3 base colors (each bottle is labeled with the color name in English). The color chart shows you 1:1 combination of all 14 base colors, so you can decide which colors to mix first as a starting point. As you experiment, don’t forget to keep track of the number of drops you use of each base color in your mixture! This “recipe” is what you’ll eventually give to the Inkstand assistant to produce your custom ink. Also make sure to clean the mixing rod and the dip pen thoroughly in the water beaker and wipe them dry with napkins between different mixes.

I remember the guy who was in charge of helping me gave me a small intro talk, probably with tips and warnings, but I can’t recall what he said. I may or may not have been pretending I knew what he was saying, which was all in Japanese. Plus he wasn’t very friendly. Not rude, just very disinterested. After the intro, we were pretty much left to our own devices. No hand holding at all, which we preferred anyway.

The reservation was for 1 hour but we were told to decide on our formulas within 45 minutes. Apparently, it was plenty of time for Mr. Three Staples because he made two colors, while I just made one. This was probably due to my indecisiveness and timidness. The color chart helped a lot but it just took me a while to warm up to the technique. Let’s just say I used up all the little plastic cups that were given. Another thing that helped me: my own gel pen. I used it to jot down changes to the ratio and new base colors I introduced to the mix I was working on. I could’ve done that with the glass dip pen but it was far less distracting and faster with a separate pen.

Once we finalized our “recipes” and notified our respective assistants, they made swatches using our ratios and had us confirm the colors. After that, they had us write our names on our order sheets, and told us to come back in 30 minutes (40 minutes for 2 bottles). I believe the limit is 2 bottles per person. So off we went and walked around the quiet neighborhood. More on this at the bottom of this post.

A selection of pre-formulated inks. I believe they were available for purchase.

When we came back, our inks were all ready for payment at the register. It was ￥2160 per bottle, containing about 33 ml (about 1.1 oz), but these days, it’s ￥2500, about $23 USD at the current exchange rate. We got lucky with their special shop-reopening deal. Pricey for a small bottle but not unreasonable for a custom color and the unique experience. I also picked up one of their Kakimori-branded rollerball pens at the last minute, which are designed to work with fountain pen inks. Again, a little more about this pen towards the bottom of this post if you’re interested.

Closing

Overall, it was a very cool experience! Slightly intimidating and stressful but I’m happy with all three colors we made. Thankfully, they turned out to be unique in our small ink collection. I didn’t realize they were pigment-based until after the trip, but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying them; I was going to try pigment inks at some point anyway. Now that I know, I’m learning more about them and being extra careful not to let them dry in my pens.

Each bottle comes in a minimal, black paper box with cut-outs on 2 sides. Inside is a little “how to use” info card and custom color recipe card that has your ink serial number you can use to reorder the ink.

Just like Kakimori, I wish Inkstand was in my neighborhood, so I could pop in whenever I have extra cash to burn (ha!) and create new colors. Perhaps it’s a good thing it’s on the other side of the globe? Another cool thing that make me wish I were a local is that you can order refills of your custom inks (possible online; no reservation needed). Your custom ink comes packaged with a “serial number” that you can use to reorder the ink. This service would be definitely something I would take advantage of if I lived there. (Note that if you made custom inks before their hiatus last year, they no longer source the same inks and you can’t reorder them anymore). Well, if we ever empty our bottles and have another chance to go to Tokyo, we’ll be sure to have our ink numbers handy.

Mine is on the far left; the other two are M’s creations. I really like them all.

I tried to make a color similar to, yet different from, my favorite J. Herbin’s Cacao du Brésil. I think I was successful. See 3rd from the bottom row.

And we’d check out this new set of Kakimori mix colors that they just introduced last month. These colors are made with the same pigment-based inks used at Inkstand, but obviously they’re their own custom blends and priced lower than custom inks. Such dreamy names, too. Perhaps they’d be good for those who don’t have the time to make a custom color but want something unique to take home?

If you’re planning to go, I hope this post was helpful. Be sure to check the Inkstand website, even if you don’t know Japanese, and familiarize yourself with plenty of pictures.

Kakimori Rollerball

This is the rollerball that I added to our order at Inkstand. Its tip size is 0.7 mm, and it was ￥1728 (about $15.50 USD these days). I don’t write with rollerballs on a regular basis, with such a thick tip no less, but it was unique to the store and the price seemed reasonable for a souvenir item. This is just a quick look, in case you’re planning to shop at either Inkstand or Kakimori. It’s a pretty chunky pen, by my standards, with clear plastic body and silver finishes at clip and finials. The top of the cap indicates that the pen is made in Germany and it comes with a Schmidt converter inside. Nice looking overall but I find its performance just okay so far. The whole construction feels a little “squeaky”, in sound and feel, for lack of a better word. The ink flow is good but the feedback you get seems quite sensitive to the angle at which you apply the tip to the paper, too.

The rollerball must be pretty popular because they also came out with the 0.5 mm version, and both sizes sold out recently (restock coming soon in April, with 3 pens per customer limit). Perhaps it’s a testament to how popular Inkstand and Kakimori are. They also promote the pen quite a bit, with several samples of it throughout both stores. They do stress that since their inks are pigment-based: if you load the rollerball with their ink, you shouldn’t let the ink dry in the pen, and it needs to be used at least once a day. It's also recommended that you refill the pen with the same ink because it’s difficult to clean it out completely. Maybe there are many people who buy several of these pens for this reason? Anyway, I can tell you that I tried it with one of the Inkstand inks, and it took a long time for me to clean it out. Now it’s loaded with a dye-based fountain pen ink. Anyway, the jury’s still out whether it was worth the money.

The rollerball is made in Germany, and comes with a Schmidt converter inside.

Rollerball on top of a B6 spiral notebook from Kakimori for scale. It came packaged with a pipette and a small plastic cup. Handy!

Hard to see but there's a white wavey line and a “Kakimori”’ logo on the plastic cap.

The neighborhood

For things to do while you wait for your inks to finish at Inkstand, the obvious option would be to shop at Kakimori next door, or to take a leisurely stroll in the surrounding Kuramae neighborhood, which is what we did. There’s a green tea shop in one of the alleys called Nakamura Tea Life that we liked. We only tasted one type, so we can’t comment on the general quality of their teas but the shop itself was really charming and the owner was so cheerful and friendly. There’s also Dandelion Chocolate nearby, which at a quick glance looked similar to the original San Francisco shop/café. What’s cool about this space – just like the SF location – is that it’s also a factory where they make their chocolate in-house. We also had fun browsing Koncent, a homewares shop with a modern vibe; it had a small Sol’s Coffee stand inside the store. For more Kuramae links, please go to the bottom of my previous post here.

WELCOME

I’m Jinnie!

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