Do You Remember Flipbooks?

I don’t know how you were in middle school and high school, but I was COMPLETELY FOCUSED all of the time. But in the rare instances I wasn’t, the corners of my notebooks made for great flipbook art. I remember making some wicked skateboard and BMX flipbooks in my day.

Ian Applegate has taken the flipbook to the next level, and launched the Flipbook Island! Kickstarter campaign. His girlfriend emailed me to give me the heads up, mainly because Ian uses Rhodia Pads and Sakura Pigma Micron Pens, both of which are some of my favorites.

The Kickstarter campaign has 14 days left and a ways to go to be funded. If you are interested, be sure to head over and check out the great flipbook videos he has posted, and consider donating. I did.

Baltz Fine Writing Instruments

Kickstarter has become a hotbed of interesting pen projects, and the latest campaign that has caught my eye is from Baltz Fine Writing Instruments.

I saw this campaign when it first hit Kickstarter last week, and the press and feedback on it have been outstanding. I exchanged emails with the founders this week, and find them to be genuinely likable guys, but then again, they are Southerners like myself, so that should be expected.

If you watch their videos and read the project details, you can tell they have put a lot of thought and detail into this offering. It isn’t cheap – $100 is the first pledge tier to come with a pen – but if you look at the craftsmanship and care that goes into each pen in the video below you will understand why.

They have already reached their initial $10,000 goal, but there is still plenty of time to get in on the action for one of these hand turned luxury pens. Well done Bart and Cass, and best of luck with the campaign.

Pen Type-A: A Minimal Pen

I was followed on Twitter by @saywey yesterday afternoon, and while I am not an auto-follow-bot, I usually at least check people out to see what they are into. As it turns out, Che-Wei Wang is a big fan of the Pilot Hi-Tec-C, and along with his design partner Taylor Levy (they run the Brooklyn based design firm CW&T), they launched a Kickstarter project called Pen Type-A.

All of the technical details can be found on the Kickstarter page, but in a nutshell, this is a custom built stainless steel barrel that is designed to hold Pilot Hi-Tec-C refills of any tip size and color. When not in use, it is housed in a stainless steel sleeve that also doubles as a ruler. A pen made by designers, for designers.

Once this campaign is complete, the Pen Type-A will retail for $99, but while it is funding, you can get one for $50 through your Kickstarter pledge. I put my money where my mouth is last night and ordered one. I wasn’t the only one apparently, because when I went to bed the campaign was a little over $1400, and is now at $3140 and has easily surpassed its $2500 goal.

There is still plenty of time to get in on the early pricing - 29 more days in fact - so if this is something that appeals to you may want to consider jumping on this now.

(I get nothing for writing this post other than the warm fuzzy of supporting a cool looking project that pushes all of the right buttons. You can view my full Kickstarter profile right here).