Today, I felt like a kid in a toy shop at Tokyu Hands. It’s a Japanese store that sell all kind of house ware, cosmetics, traveller, decoration, and hundreds of cool “useless stuff”. They have just opened, and I discovered a huge corner for pens and notebook (30% of the whole shop was shelves filled with thousands of pens !).


I think I stayed there about 2 hours playing with the pens…
where I decorated quite a good number of these sketch pad and note book.


TRY ME ! You won’t ask me twice :).  I started with a Mechanical pencil on a nice Japanese note book.
A young boy came to see me drawing. I could feel how interested he is into learning how to sketch. Just saying that I believe the difference between people who succeed at knowing how to draw, and others, is the determination. It is truly not the initial skill or the number of sophisticated art supplies you have, but the energy that I believe the young boy has inside. Sketching is not a hobby, it’s a passion.


Sometime I think I should train my handwriting… I usually don’t dare to sign, as it mess up everything at the very end ! Kind of shame… 🙂


The most “weirdo” pen I have ever met. And I really enjoyed it. It’s the PILOT PARELLEL, for calligraphy. You can find it in multiple variation of width for the metal nip. If you look closer, you may notice the “small teeth”. It allows the ink to spread well on paper. I like the subtle scratching sound it makes.


Awesome calligraphy from Ewa Landowska. You can see more of her work here at Behance.net. She’s impressive.


The way I use is totally different. Anyway, nobody said it was not allowed.

Snkeakers-adidas-pilot-parallel-calligraphy-theDesignSketchbook

Here is the widest pen of the series. Whatever stroke I did, there was a nice feel of Zen coming out of it.


How about ending with a bit of Concept thumbnails ?

I left the shop without buying it despite of having it in my basket for half an hour. I think I should have get it. I already miss it.

After a quick post on Instagram of one of above picture, Scott saw the unusual concept of pen. Very enthusiast, he made an impulsive buying getting the whole series of Parallel pen from Amazon. Scott, if you read me, I am curious to see your next creation with it ! :).

If you too is a fan of art supplies and know some “weirdo pens”, tell us in the comments !

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