This week we’ve been salivating about all things stationery with the help of World Stationery Week and the London Stationery Show. Kerri Littlefield tells us why the pleasure of paper and pens pushes so many buttons…

Why sketch, when you can use your phone to video? Why bother with a diary, when you can use iCal? Why write when you can type out your ideas and thoughts? We have the answer – it's because stationery is emotional.

This week we are more awash with our passion for stationery than ever, having been at the London Stationery Show in Islington. A 2-day stationery fest at the stylish Business Design Centre, the show is packed with big name well-established stationers, as well as plenty of new emerging stationery talent. Creators, designers and business people from all over the world, all getting very excited about their stationery and doing great business.

The exhibiton director, Chris Leonard-Morgan boasts the show’s record-breaking year, with the number of stands more than doubling with 155 exhibitors representing over 400 brands and 1000s of products from around the world.

“This year’s London Stationery Show is the sixth and biggest yet.”

Stationery’s feel-good power was very evident at the show. A journal can help you express yourself, learn about others close to you – stuff you’ve never even considered asking. It can help you take control of your life by inspiring you to get organised. There’s a lot more to stationery than the back-to-school sets. Grown ups are getting very excited about journaling and stationery too.

The increase in demand for beautiful stationery is clearly tapping into some deep-seated passions. It’s no wonder really, when we keep our closest secrets in diaries and journals and handwriting is so personal, like a personal fingerprint. There’s so much room for creativity and expression through doodling and sketching as, over the years, pychologists have recognised the benefits of writing as therapy. And poets have expressed huge pain and pleasure in their beautifully crafted writing.

You don’t need to be the next Wordsworth or Tennyson to savor the smell of the freshly printed journal, the point of the newly sharpened pencil, the first mark in a new notebook. For every fashion and design enthusiast, there’s a stationery fetishist getting just as excited about buying a new journal or pen as she would if buying a new pair of gorgeous designer shoes.

For both business and personal reasons, the London Stationery Show was a positive experience. Getting to witness first hand the emotional power of stationery was a joy. To see the passion among those in the industry was even better.

Want to see how writing or giving a journal can enrich your life? Go to JournalsOfALifetime.com to get started.

LINKS

The London Stationery Show http://www.stationeryshow.co.uk/
Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201308/writing-therapy