After posting a short piece on a London paper goods shop (Present and Correct), I suddenly remembered the Gmund Papier und Druck shop I visited early this year in Munich. The Gmund store is located on the Prannerstrasse next to the Bayerischer Hof hotel. Gmund is a Bavarian paper making firm that dates back to 1829. It is named after Gmund am Tegernsee, the town where the firm was born. They make paper for invitations, cards, letters, envelopes and blank notebooks. When you visit the store, you can feel the varieties of paper — the luxurious textures and colors that make their paper an absolute joy to write on.

It’s very unfashionable in my industry (tech) to write on paper using a fountain pen, which I still do, out of habit. When I was at school (run by Belgian nuns), we had to write with fountain pens. The thing I realized over the years is that unless the paper I’m writing on high quality paper, the ink does not dry immediately and all of my words end up in a bleeding mess. If the paper is too thin, the ink ends up on the back page. If it’s too fibrous, little bits clog up the fountain pen. I know, very eccentric. Maybe that’s why I love paper goods: little note cards, blank notebooks, envelopes and letter pages.

I am amazed at how popular Moleskine notebooks have become. I have used them over the years but I find the paper to be of inferior quality to that used by Gmund and other notebook makers such as Richard Painter, another German brand. It’s not just the paper, but the binding and the cover of the notebook itself. Gmund is superior to anything I’ve every had.

I am certain that my tech friends are laughing right now, making fun of my fetish for dead tree products, but for me, there is something meditative about writing on paper, especially on beautiful blank notebooks. I write about anything: my ideas for new web applications, short stories, poetry. It seems to me that something so creative deserves an aesthetic home and the act of writing itself becomes fulfilling. It’s part of the “slow” movement, like Slow Food, where people take the time to enjoy the everyday things in life.

If you are ever in Munich, visit the Gmund shop for all your paper needs, and stop by a good pen store, too. For fountain pens, I use a Pelikan Souveraen M800. For ball pens, I find the quality and elegance of Faber-Castell ball pens to be unbeatable (as are their fountain pens).

Gmund
Prannerstrasse 5
80333 Munich
Germany
+49 89 2102 0984
www.gmund.com

I love stationery: blank and lined notebooks, note cards, letter sets, calendars, agendas, pencils. Present and Correct is an online store in London started by graphic designers who love quiry design. They source many of their products from Japan, South Korea and Germany. Here are my favorites.

Present and Correct
42 Melbourne Grove
London, SE22 8QZ
United Kingdom
Call: +44 (0)20 8299 5823

Looking for a cool messenger bag that’s made locally in San Francisco and inspired by the urban cycling culture? Check out Rickshaw Bagworks. They have messenger bags of varying sizes and colors with efficiently divided pockets and slots, perfect for gadget freaks. They also have baby bags that don’t make you look like a Stepford mum. Their B2B collection has exterior fabric made out of post-consumer recycled beverage bottles. Very green.

You can order online at www.rickshawbags.com or visit their factory-store in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.

Rickshaw Bagworks
904 22nd Street,
San Francisco, CA 94107
+1 415 904 8368
www.rickshawbags.com