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Zippy loves office supplies

It was brought to my attention that Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy The Pinhead comic strips, is quite partial to naming his characters after various art and office supplies. The strip that ran on Oct. 22, 2012, has several references to well-known products like Speedball (maker of screenprinting supplies and crow quill and calligraphy nibs), Sanford (maker of Sharpie, Papermate and Prismacolor) and Flair (the infamous Papermate felt tip pen). He’s also used Grumbacher and others in his strips as well. Office supply nerd fun.

Desk with a view

This is the desk inside Amie Weitzman’s New England cottage. The desk is from Ikea though it looks to me to be two small bookcases with a piece of wood painted to match as the worktop.

The thing I like best is that instead of an inspiration board, bulletin board or artwork above the desk is the view out the window — the ever-changing view full of its own kind of inspiration.

(via Design*Sponge)

Renaissance Art Journals

Our new friends over at Modern Vintage Man turned us on to Renaissance Art handcrafted leather refillable journals. With a distinctly Indiana Jones vibe, these leather books can be custom ordered with snap closure, tie closure, flap with snap or simple stitched cover. Additional customization is available including debossing graphics on the cover, decorative endpapers and more. Each book is filled with 128 pages of either lined or blank 120g Arches cotton rag stock. The inner paper dimensions are 5.5″x8.5″ and the covers add about a half an inch overall to the size. Prices start $79.95.

More About Red-and-Blue Pencils

I received lots of great response about the two-tone pencils we posted about last week. It turns out teachers used them for grading (red) and writing in the correct answers (blue), copy editing if one end was non-reproduction blue and for keeping records for playing Go. One of our readers Knyphe included a link to for Peanuts-themed red/blue pencils from Japan.

Another reader from Hungary said that the red/blue pencils were used in early primary school but could not recall the specific circumstances. Maybe in helping children to write their letters and then use the red to correct?

And yesterday, while perusing the pages of Julia Rothman’s book Drawn In: A Peek into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, and Cartoonists , I found the artist Meg Hunt who uses the red and blue pencil to lay down her sketches before inking them. She says,

“The red and blue pencil is for two reasons: one, sketching in colored pencil is less smudgy, and as a left-handed artist I find it easier to work with than graphite. Secondly, it’s very light, and I can be a little rough with the drawing without having to worry about it needing to be erased once I need to scan the finished ink work — in Photoshop I can adjust the lines and lose the colored pencil work easily.”

Thanks to all you wonderful readers for all the input and places to buy these lovely pencils!

These vintage ones come from Present & Correct for £3 each.

(via Present&Correct)

Sherpa is offering a limited edition Year of the Dragon Sherpa which is printed with dragon scales design and the Chinese symbol for “dragon” embossed on the clip.

For those unfamiliar, the Serpa is a case to insert your favorite disposable pen like Sharpie, Pilot, Uni-Ball or Accent highlighters. My husband loves to keep a Sharpie in his Sherpa for marking boxes and making sure no one walks off with his held in its distinctive casing.

This pen is limited to only 888. $39.95

(via Paradise Pens)