Advertising with a pencil

Many companies use promo materials to raise the public's awareness about their company, brand, products etc. Many times with a cheap plastic ballpoint that has the name printed on the side. Why not be a bit different and use a pencil instead.

Koh-I-Noor has a catalog to present their advertising products. In the images, you can see a lot of known brands using Koh-I-Noor pencils for marketing purposes

The pencils come in a variety of forms, and sizes and are using the colors of the brands they represent.

I really like the idea of using something less plasticky for marketing, plus they do not look all the same.

A double treat for me, apart from the cool idea of having marketing material in form of a humble pencil, is that I work for one of the companies that is present in the Koh-I-Noor catalog.

Continental Typewriter at a flea market

No pencils or fountain pens for today, just a little part of the history of writing, or IT :)

Even though last weeks had unstable weather and today according to the forecast it was not different I chose to get up early in the morning and go to the local flea market, that takes place every Saturday. It is the first time I go, and I heard that the best is to go early in the morning. Just to demonstrate how relative things are, I chose to go at 9 o'clock as it is a Saturday, but the flea market opens up at 4 am.

Anyway, I started roaming around, looking here and there. In all this time I didn't even notice the shining sun and the fact that my head and arms are getting burned. Going through junk is mesmerizing and creates a weirdly satisfying feeling.

Between the kitsch, junk, CE (China Export) and other things I can not put a tag on, I saw a part of history, writing or IT. I do not know where to put it.

I think the category for it is IT, as the seller put this Continental Typewriter next to laptops.

I can remember that one of my grandmother's neighbor had a typewriter, and I wrote so Mambo Jambo about 25 years ago or so. At the moment I didn't know how to write, as I haven't started school, but I was fascinated by the fact you could see the letters move to make an imprint on the paper.

I did a quick search on the internet and the last Continental Typewriter was produced in 1954.

Maybe this is not your, "cup of tea"... No problem, there were still a lot of things to see and buy                       I took home a #22 spanner, a punch, and a tailor's ruler. Maybe next time I will find some old fountain pens or something related to writing that is worth checking out.

Ink over time

Recently I started writing with a fountain pen again. The appetite for fountain pens has been ignited by the cheap Preppy. The sensation was quite nice switching from ballpoint to fountain pen. But the fact that ink is soluble into water made me contemplate on the resistance of ink over time. You can find on the Internet and on the forums good UV tests of different inks. But I wanted a test of my own to see how my inks work in my situation, so your  mileage may vary. I live in a place with moderate sunlight. I tried to replicate what would happen to your ink writings left on a table on which you get a fair share of sunlight.
The test is not very scientific as i used different fountain pens and the exposure to light was different as i did not used all the inks in the test from the begining but still the results are interesting.

Inks used: platinum blue black, Faber Castell royal blue, Faber Castell permanent black, Pelikan 4001 royal blue, Pelikan 4001 black, Pelikan 4001 personal mix 1:1 royal blue and black, Koh I Noor Blue

The test was conducted for a period of 4 months from March until June.

Results:
Koh I Noor blue with the least time exposed to sunlight is almost invisible
Faber Castell royal blue is very hard to read even though it received a similar amount of sun with Pelikan 4001 royal blue
The blacks from Pelikan and Faber Castell look similar after sun exposure.
The winner of the test I would say is the Platinum blue black
The ink was not the only one affected by the sun the paper that was exposed obtain a yellowish tint

Also see: Platinum Preppy