Posts filed under Schon DSGN

Five Days, One Pen

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter.)

When I'm getting ready for a trip, the first thing I think about is, which pens do I bring? And how many? Do I need petit pens for easy transport, high-capacity ink tanks for long writing sessions, a variety of colors for coding or outlining? Do I bring my favorite fancy pens or stick to the mid-range ones? Do I need something durable, or will something delicate be okay? There's so much to consider. And sometimes, once the variables are weighed, the answer is...none. I don't need any pens on this trip. No pens will be safe on this trip. I won't have time for pens on this trip. And sometimes that's a great thing. No, really.

Usually, I'm traveling for work or to visit family. For conferences, I need lots and lots of pens. All the pens, even! I don't hold back. Visiting family, I know I might have a little extra time to write while relatives entertain the kids. But last week, I went on my first ever family vacation. Just me, my hubby, and our two kiddos (ages 10 and 3) on a real just-for-fun trip to Clearwater Beach, Florida, courtesy of my husband's employer. No work allowed.

Traveling with kids is difficult. Especially young kids who need tons of gear--diapers and car seats and strollers and spare clothes and things to keep them from shrieking like banshees. I was not going to have room in my bag for all the pens or even a big notebook. I knew my own carry was going to have to be bare bones. I knew I wasn't going to have time to write or even sit, probably, and I was never going to have my hands free.

But I don't need a pen to sit on the beach, or at the pool, or watching dolphins at the aquarium. I don't need a pen to sip cocktails on a boat at sunset, or collect seashells. No pens for teaching my kids how to do a cannonball or snorkel or pet stingrays.

But I'm also a pen addict, so I couldn't bring NO pens. I let myself bring one, and I went for sheer practicality. I picked the Schon DSGN pocket pen with a Fisher Space Pen refill. Having taken the measure of my entire collection--this pen is apparently my desert island pen. It fits in a pocket, writes on anything, anywhere, and is indestructible. All important criteria when hopping from busses to trains to planes to boats all while loaded out like an alpaca in the Andes.

For notebooks, I brought a Doane Paper Grid + Lines where I'd done all of our trip planning. It's also where I stuffed all our receipts and tickets, and thought (hoped) I might have time to journal (I didn't).

I missed my pens. I missed writing. But not ALL the time, because we were having too much fun, and my kids were the number one focus for this trip. And I was happy with my carry choice. I only wrote two things the entire trip--our room service order on the back of a receipt and a thank you note to leave with the housekeeping tip. I never even wrote in the notebook, and the second thing I wrote with the hotel's freebie Bic pen.

We had the time of our lives. And we did it all without pens. Who would have thought that was possible, right? And it's good, when leaving paradise, to return to something you love. If I hadn't left my pens here on my desk, who knows if I'd have come back at all.

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Posted on March 22, 2018 by Sarah Read and filed under Doane Paper, Schon DSGN.

Schon Dsgn #01S Tumbled Stainless Steel Pen Giveaway

I reviewed the Schon Dsgn #01S yesterday, and today I am here to give this same pen away to one reader of The Pen Addict. Big thanks to Ian Schon for sending this pen my way! Here is how to enter:

Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Friday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. This contest is open to US and international residents.
For this contest, I will pick one winner at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winner.
The contest winner will be posted on Saturday, June 25th. The winner will have one week to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page.

Thanks, and good luck!

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Giveaways, Schon DSGN.

Schon Dsgn #01S Tumbled Stainless Steel Pocket Pen Review

I first came across Ian Schon and his beautifully designed pens during what was then called The Pen Project on Kickstarter. For a reason that escapes me now, I didn’t back it. Now that I have had the #01S Tumbled Stainless Steel model in my hands for a while I am regretting not getting on board sooner. Sorry Ian!

What Schon DSGN brings to the table is a portable, pocketable pen will a full-sized writing experience. The body of the pen is made from your choice of metals, including aluminum, brass, bronze, stainless steel, and titanium. Stainless is the most recent addition to the lineup, and the pen Ian graciously sent me to review.

Stainless steel is known for its strength and durability. Those features also come with a price: Weight. This is a heavy pen. In fact, it is too heavy for me when posted. That said, with my writing grip and the design of the pen, it is long enough to write with comfortably unposted, which I do about 95% of the time. The other 5% I pretend like I can write comfortably with the barrel posted on the back of the pen, but I just can’t.

I carried the 01S daily for a couple of weeks and found myself reaching for it constantly. If I wore nylon shorts I did notice the wight of the pen in my pocket, and it did bounce around a bit. With cotton or other heavier fabrics I found it settled in nicely. This pen would be the ideal pocket pen for jeans.

Another hangup may be the fact that to access the refill you need to remove the set screw in the end of the barrel. This is a non-issue honestly. The Fisher Space Pen refill it uses will last for months with regular use, meaning you will rarely need to get into the barrel. And when you do, the screw removes easily with a screwdriver, coin, or back of a knife blade as I did.

If you are interested in this pen and were asking me to make a recommendation, I would say try the aluminum barrel models first, likely the black one. The weight won’t come as a shock, and you still get the same high-quality pen. If you are a stainless steel fan, or are looking for a heavier pen, I would absolutely recommend this model, or either of the brass or bronze models if you like to see wear and patina on your pocket pen.

You can’t go wrong with small batch, American made manufacturing in my book, and that is what Ian Schon has brought to the table with his Schon DSGN pens. My thanks to Ian for sending this pen to me at no charge for purposes of this review.

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