The Ten Most Influential Stationery Products of the Past Decade

Notice that I’m not framing today’s post as another “best of” list, but rather something different. Here I’ve tried to identify those stationery products that have most influenced what is currently on the market today, which necessarily may include some products that either weren’t good to begin with or haven’t held up over time as the stationery market has evolved. This list may also include products which weren’t released in the 2010s, but still established their popularity and influence during the past decade. This New Year’s is bittersweet for me. My foray into pen collection (let’s just call it “pen enthusiasm”) really started up again in early 2010, so it’s hard to believe that ten years has passed. Writing this list brought up a lot of feels. I hope it does for you as well. Happy reading!

1. Field Notes. To me, naming the Field Notes pocket notebook, and the brand as a whole, as the most influential stationery product of the past 10 years is something of a no-brainer. I wasn’t going to do a ranked list, but after evaluating my top five, I’m pretty comfortable with the order, and leaving Field Notes as the undisputed No. 1. The Field Notes quarterly edition subscription program has taken on a life of its own, with certain coveted past editions arguably qualifying as design icons. Absent the success of Field Notes and Moleskine (see below), I have a hard time seeing many notebook-focused companies enjoying the level of success they are seeing today. While Field Notes have fallen out of rotation for me personally, that’s more a function of my own needs than anything else.

2. Moleskine. I debated whether to include Moleskine on this list, as the brand launched in the late 1990s and expanded throughout the 2000s, which is when the “black Moleskine” notebook first became synonymous with hipster stationery, and later, omnipresent. Why did I ultimately include it? Because Moleskine inspired countless companies to attempt to “build a better Moleskine” - a black everyday carry notebook that contained consistently decent paper and held up over time. Without Moleskine, would the Leuchtturm 1917 or the Rhodia Webnotebook be as popular as they are, or would brands such as the Dingbats notebook or Endless Recorder even exist?

3. Blackwing 602. Am I talking about the vintage pencil or the modern pencil? How about both? At the beginning of the decade, as the stationery-obsessed began to “rediscover” pencils (or at least talk about them on the internet), you could still find lots of original Blackwings at what would now be considered reasonable prices on eBay. Then CalCedar, maker of the popular Palomino pencil - may it rest in peace - announced that it had acquired the right to the Blackwing and would begin making a modern version of this classic pencil. Today, Blackwing is on its way to becoming a brand to rival Moleskine.

4. Noodler’s Ink. I’ve mentioned numerous times how, ten years ago, Noodler’s Ink was one of the only options if you wanted “boutique” inks in colors other than the standard black-blue-blue/black-red, green, and purple. Five different shades of each color? Now, boutique ink manufacturers such as Robert Oster Signature, KWZ, and Colorverse are the norm, and even old-line pen companies like Pilot and Sailor have vastly expanded their ink lineups to include dozens of colors.

5. Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Pen. The so-called “refill that launched a thousand Kickstarters,” and arguably the entire modern machined pen industry. JetPens even built a business around sourcing Japanese gel pen refills that are difficult to find in the U.S. I’ve fallen away from the Hi-Tec-C in recent years, but for those who love needle-tip gel pens and write small, it still has enduring popularity. I still field weekly questions about whether this or that machined pen is compatible with the Hi-Tec-C.

6. Montblanc Alfred Hitchcock Limited Edition Ink. Did this 2012 ink launch the “limited edition” ink craze? In my mind, it did, since it’s definitely the first ink I can remember people purchasing in lots of up to a dozen bottles to hoard, back in the days when there weren’t so many inks that you could find a similar shade elsewhere. Of course, that doesn’t keep people from trying to duplicate what some consider the best red ink ever made….

7. Edison Pens. Brian Gray of Edison Pens was the first to truly take the “custom fountain pen” industry into the mainstream, offering not only custom designs but unique filling systems, including modern recreations of vintage-style filling systems such as the pump (vacumatic) and pneumatic fillers, as well as his own innovations like the “Draw Filler”. Today, those looking to design their own ideal fountain pen can also choose to work with Shawn Newton, Renee Meeks (Scriptorium Pens), Jonathan Brooks, and many others, but Edison Pens kicked off the trend!

8. TWSBI 530/540/580. In addition to custom-designed fountain pens, which can cost hundreds of dollars or more, the 2010s were notable for the reintroduction of mid-range and entry-level writing instruments of a quality unavailable since the so-called “golden age” of fountain pens decades earlier. Leading the pack was Taiwanese company TWSBI, which has now introduced several iterations of its 5XX series fountain pens, in addition to the acclaimed TWSBI Eco. TWSBI designed its initial release, the TWSBI 530, with input from the fountain pen community (making it sort-of-crowdsourced-but-not-really), and tweaked the design throughout the decade in response to customer feedback and quality control issues. Now, TWSBIs are regarded as some of the most reliable low-cost fountain pens available, and their accessible price point has served to keep other companies (relatively) honest.

9. Nanami Seven Seas Notebooks. This entry on the list could easily be “Tomoe River Paper,” but I decided to go with Nanami Paper, which was one of the first companies to offer an accessible fountain pen friendly notebook stuffed with hundreds of pages of excellent ultra-thin Japanese paper. For a while, Nanami couldn’t make enough of their Seven Seas Writer and Crossfield. Though today there are plenty of other companies offering similar notebooks, it’s still hard to match Nanami’s quality.

10. Hobonichi Planner. Perhaps as part of the greater rebellion against digitizing anything and everything, the paper planner has made a comeback. While the planner resurgence could justify it’s own stand-alone article, the Hobonichi Techo makes this list as the first insanely popular fountain pen friendly Japanese planner that is now available in an English-language version. Whether people love the Tomoe River paper or the flexible format, the Hobonichi looks like it’s here to stay, and has driven the popularity of other Japanese planner systems like Kokuyo’s Jibun Techo, my own planner of choice.

A lot on this list is, of course, affected by my own personal experience and preference, and you can argue about the “Top 10” anything, but I don’t think there can be much dispute that all of these were influential. Stay tuned for more year-end recap content over the next couple of weeks! Happy New Year to everyone, and know that I appreciate your readership and support.

Disclaimer: Wherever possible I’ve tried to link to a past post of mine reviewing or discussing the items listed here. Otherwise, I’ve linked to sponsors or the companies themselves.