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I Took A Survey On Facebook And... And Did The Opposite.

jj9ball

By jj9ball
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jj9ball Rare

jj9ball

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I took a pretty informal survey on facebook about what everyone looked for in a fountain pen. I am working on developing actual named models of my pens and wanted the widest variety possible. I got a lot of great feedback that was really helpful. I was suprised to find a large number of people who preferred skinny pens. So with that in mind, I made another fat one. It was actually already in the works when I posed the question. I do have a skinny pen that I made to offer as well. The first pen is the skinny one. It has a section that is only around 10.6 or 10.7mm with a #6 JOWO nib. The only issue is it takes 1/2 turn to put the cap on, and normally my pens take about 1 1/2 to 2 turns to turn on. For this reason I have it clearance priced on my website www.jandjwooddesigns.net. The other pen is the fat one. I couldn't help it. The nebula material is really beautiful and I wanted to show it off. Another comment from the survey was more conservative colors and I think this pen fits that bill pretty well. It can also be found here www.jandjwooddesigns.net. I am always interested to hear any questions or comments. Thanks for looking.

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Come see some of my handmade pens!!!

www.jandjwooddesigns.net

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mke Antique

mke

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If you do surveys, you usually get answers covering the whole field as everyone likes something different.

 

Better ask your customers what they like and tell other people that you can do modifications of pen designs which exist - being flexible is the most important point for a pen maker.

Recently, nib modifications are a good selling point - see Franklin-Christoph, Birmingham Pens, Scriptorium Pens, ...

 

The nebula pen would look much better without the clip. (My personal taste!)

Edited by mke
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Marlow Extremely Rare

Marlow

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The nebula pen would look nice without the clip.

 

+1. Clipless pens in attractive colourways are awesome. Edit: make em faceted to prevent them rolling off the desk and they're perfect!

Edited by Marlow

"Every job is good if you do your best and work hard.

A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have

nothing to do but smell."

Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

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inkstainedruth Ancient Artifact

inkstainedruth

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I always wonder with those sorts of "surveys" what the flow chart behind them looks like. I did one on FB a few years ago which said that my ideal car should be a 60s Cadillac convertible.... Which is so far from the truth it isn't funny. My personal attitude about land yachts in general is that you couldn't pay me enough to drive one, and (no offense to Caddy drivers) but I think the absolute trifecta of "don't come anywhere near me on the road" would be some little old person driving an Escalade.... I swear -- put someone behind the wheel of a Cadillac and their brain gets sucked into the ozone the minute they turn the ignition key.... So for a "survey" saying it's my "ideal" vehicle? I have to ask what the quiz designer was smoking because whatever it was it is probably not legal anywhere in these 50 states.... :sick:

As for "skinny" pens, I do like my Parker Vectors a lot. But would not use one for writing the "Great American Novel" with.... Three pages of journaling at one sitting with one of them is enough. Trying to write a novel would give me hand cramps. Of course I also don't like super fat or heavy pens either. The heaviest pens I have are my two TWSBIs (580-AL and 580-ALR) and my largest pen is the Sheaffer Balance Oversize which had belonged to my husband's grandfather (but which is surprisingly lightweight for its size).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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jj9ball Rare

jj9ball

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If you do surveys, you usually get answers covering the whole field as everyone likes something different.

 

Better ask your customers what they like and tell other people that you can do modifications of pen designs which exist - being flexible is the most important point for a pen maker.

Recently, nib modifications are a good selling point - see Franklin-Christoph, Birmingham Pens, Scriptorium Pens, ...

 

The nebula pen would look much better without the clip. (My personal taste!)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on getting better at nib work. Its a lot like learning how to make the pen itself. You spend a few months making mistakes and sucking at it before you finally get something presentable. Unfortunately, when it comes to my nib smoothing ability, I am just finishing the sucking phase and hopefully entering the useful result phase. I will offer more modifications as soon as I get to a spot where I feel like I can offer enough value to charge for the service.

Come see some of my handmade pens!!!

www.jandjwooddesigns.net

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jj9ball Rare

jj9ball

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I always wonder with those sorts of "surveys" what the flow chart behind them looks like. I did one on FB a few years ago which said that my ideal car should be a 60s Cadillac convertible.... Which is so far from the truth it isn't funny. My personal attitude about land yachts in general is that you couldn't pay me enough to drive one, and (no offense to Caddy drivers) but I think the absolute trifecta of "don't come anywhere near me on the road" would be some little old person driving an Escalade.... I swear -- put someone behind the wheel of a Cadillac and their brain gets sucked into the ozone the minute they turn the ignition key.... So for a "survey" saying it's my "ideal" vehicle? I have to ask what the quiz designer was smoking because whatever it was it is probably not legal anywhere in these 50 states.... :sick:

As for "skinny" pens, I do like my Parker Vectors a lot. But would not use one for writing the "Great American Novel" with.... Three pages of journaling at one sitting with one of them is enough. Trying to write a novel would give me hand cramps. Of course I also don't like super fat or heavy pens either. The heaviest pens I have are my two TWSBIs (580-AL and 580-ALR) and my largest pen is the Sheaffer Balance Oversize which had belonged to my husband's grandfather (but which is surprisingly lightweight for its size).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

I did figure on getting information overload and it certainly was a lot of information. One thing I was looking for were common themes, and I think I picked up enough that it will help to guide my creative process more going forward. Obviously there is no such thing as one size fits all, but there is such a thing as a pen that is visually and physically appealing to a wide variety of people. I was hoping to land in a place where I was able to produce a few such models. BTW, the SUV people drive me nuts too. I can't stand going to Target with my wife and trying not to get run over by the skinny little white girls in the 4 ton SUVs.

Come see some of my handmade pens!!!

www.jandjwooddesigns.net

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