We’re gearing up for pen show and trade show season, and I’ve been fielding regular questions about bag and case options in advance of Stationery Fest in NYC, the D.C. Pen Show the following week, and the San Francisco Pen Show later that month. In between, I may also be attending NY Now and Shoppe Object, two large to-the-trade stationery shows in New York City. So let’s just say that “stationery carry” is on my mind. Here I’m going to walk through a handful of considerations when choosing a show bag (or just a stationery bag in general), and then I’ll discuss a few of my go-to options. This list is not intended to be exclusive, but rather to offer some ideas based around models I use regularly.

Joe's Overstuffed Rickshaw Banzai Bag Holding Everything — I rarely overstuff a bag like this anymore, but with a well-designed option like the Rickshaw Banzai Bag, you certainly can!

Key Considerations for a Stationery Bag

Smaller Backpacks, Please. When you’re at a show, don’t be that person who carries the giant 40L backpack that slams into people, knocks over items on tables, and blocks peoples view. Just don’t. Some shows are actually imposing bag size limits. If you need a backpack, choose a smaller “day pack” size option that fits flat against your back. Even for everyday carry, you probably need a smaller bag than you think. When I have a bag that’s too big, stuff tends to shift and collect at the bottom and things get dinged up.
Choose a Bag Tailored to What You Actually Carry or Plan to Buy at a Show. If you’re going to a show mainly to buy a few pens or have pens ground, you can fit a LOT of pens into a very small bag, and you can even get away with carrying a small portfolio-style pen case or clutch. Tote bags are great if you’re shopping for lightweight items like washi tapes and other accessories. I’ve done pen shows with nothing but a Rickshaw Sinclair and it was super liberating to ditch the backpack or messenger bag. Buying paper or larger items requires more planning and extra capacity.
Comfort is Key. If you’re planning to carry heavy stuff (i.e., lots of paper), or if you’ll be out all day and need to carry snacks and a water bottle, choose a bag with a supportive strap. I cannot emphasize enough how heavy paper can get - try lugging it all over Tokyo in warm weather - and an ergonomic backpack was key to keeping the trip enjoyable.
Organization and Protection. I personally prefer bags with multiple compartments and pockets, to keep my notebooks separate from my water bottle, pen cases, and everything else. It also helps me stay organized since I carry so many different types of things with me at any given time. For shows, I would emphasize protection - if you’re buying pads of paper or soft notebooks, a bag with a laptop slot or a padded interior will keep them from getting dinged up in transit if you aren’t staying at the show venue and can’t run them up to your room or out to your car.

Joe's Rickshaw Fillmore and Leather Notebook Carry — I’ve really reduced my carry over the years, and have largely moved on from an “I must take everything” approach.

My 5 Favorite Stationery Bags and Cases for Pen and Stationery Shows

Rickshaw Banzai Bag. Designed for pen people, this compact messenger/sling bag is unobtrusive and holds a surprising amount given its compact size. I like to carry this as part of a modular system with multiple Rickshaw cases including the Sinclair and Fillmore pen cases (discussed further below). For an even slimmer system that operates off this same concept, the Lochby Field Sling is designed to carry a notebook, a pen case, and maybe some extras.
Tom Bihn Synapse. I have the Synapse 25L but you can also opt for the smaller Synapse 19. I took the larger version to Japan, since it doubled as both a day bag and my primary carry-on. I love this bag because (1) it has at least 5 externally accessible zippered pockets and compartments, and (2) it doesn’t have a clamshell zipper, meaning that there’s no risk of the bag coming completely unzipped and all your stuff falling out. This bag can be cinched down to a compact size, but it can also hold a ton of stuff if you need it to.
Rickshaw Sinclair Model-R and/or Fillmore. These pen cases will hold 3-6 pens and a small notebook, and will fit inside the Banzai bag or any other bag or backpack. They are great for modular packing, but as mentioned above can also be carried on a stand-alone basis as a clutch. When I’m working from a coffee shop or going to pen club, more often than not I’m taking just a notebook or planner and my Fillmore. (The cloud design shown here is our own shop exclusive, which is hand-drawn by Nick Dominguez and available in multiple Rickshaw formats!)
Lochby Venture Pouch and/or Venture Pouch Mini. Similar to the Rickshaw cases, yet also completely different, the Lochby Venture Pouch is a double-sided pen pouch/bag that functions as a slotted pen case on one side and a standard stationery pouch on the reverse. (For a full demonstration of how this works, check out this YouTube video I did years ago.) The Lochby Field Sling also features a removable strap and can be carried clutch-style if you need slightly more capacity, or alternatively you can use a strap like that on the Field Sling and turn your Venture Pouch into a compact sling bag.
Any Tote Bag. As long as you don’t let them get too heavy, I LOVE tote bags for shows. I’ll typically stash a roll-up tote somewhere - either under the table or in my main bag - and break it out if I get carried away with my purchases. Tote bags are also great at stationery fests, where the emphasis is more on smaller, more lightweight items like stickers, washi tape, and less-precious pens and pencils. I will do a plug for the Rickshaw Musette, which features a longer strap and was designed for these events in that you can easily convert to a cross body bag for added security in crowded ballrooms.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by online purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

A top-down look at the Rickshaw Musette Tote, which is long enough to hold a full pad of paper. This can be worn over the shoulder, cross-body, or carried as a tote bag.

If you’ve noticed a more active T.G.S. over the past month, your eyes do not deceive you: I’m now working here about half-time, in addition to a day job. But that commitment comes with a healthy dose of reality - namely, how to successfully manage different projects that both require time and attention to detail, yet which are very different in terms of both hours and the substantive work involved.

Minimizing Context-Shifting by using Separate Notebooks for Different Projects

Though I may write mostly about pens and ink, paper has always been the focus of my stationery obsession, namely notebooks and organizers and how best to use them. People often ask how I work on multiple unrelated projects at once, but the truth is that I’ve been doing this my whole life. I have divergent interests, and while I sometimes have to “thin the herd” by shelving projects and hobbies that I can’t do justice, over the years I’ve cultivated an analog-focused system that (mostly) maintains my sanity. The trick has been to compartmentalize where I can, and avoid having to switch back-and-forth between unrelated matters, which I find draining.

Hobonichi Yamazakura and Roterfaden A6 Side-by-Side — I picked up one of the A6 Hobonichi Yamazakura notebooks at the Dallas Pen Show just because I loved the cover design, which got me thinking about how much I missed using the Hobonichi products (particularly the daily quotes) and how I might incorporate them going forward without really changing my setup.

The big question from my personal organizational standpoint has always been this: Do I keep one notebook or planner with multiple sections for different projects, or multiple notebooks with each one dedicated to a single project? While I’ve experimented with both methods over the years, I prefer the latter approach because a dedicated notebook locks in my focus on that particular project and allows me to maintain my concentration. (I do keep a central “Planner” that I use to organize my time across projects and track what I work on each day. This is the only daily notebook that deals with multiple subject matters.) Each of the “projects” that I’m working on has their own binder, typically a Plotter or William Hannah notebook that lets me add individual pages, which can then be organized and subdivided into sections as necessary.

Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter containing Hobonichi Cousin — I’ve had a couple questions about whether or not the Hobonichi Cousins “fit” the Roterfadens. I’ve personally used this Roterfaden pictured here with Hobonichi and similarly-sized notebooks like the Nanami Seven Seas for years, but it can be a tight fit given how thick the Hobonichis are. If you want to ensure extra coverage for your notebook, consider one of the recycled leather versions (LB23 or LB15). For the cousin, I’d suggest the SO20, which is a thinner A5 leather cover without an elastic, and it seems to be cut slightly larger than standard A5 and can accommodate the extra thickness.

My Tentative Notebook Setup for the Remainder of 2023 and For the next year

Keeping in mind that this remains a work in progress, here’s my preliminary setup:

Working Journal/Time Block Planner. One technique that’s helped me avoid a sense of overwhelm is “time blocking”: managing my time in dedicated larger blocks as opposed to working off a mixed to-do list and jumping back and forth between projects throughout the day. My ideal setup would be to assign entire days to specific projects - made easier by the fact that TGS now has its own office space - but I’ll settle for a system where I can at least block out hours of time for uninterrupted focus, and my new work arrangement better allows for that. Time management techniques are somewhat beyond the scope of this blog, but if you’re interested in reading further (or testing it out yourself), the Time Block Planner 2.0 by Cal Newport offers a good introduction to this concept. I don’t plan on buying another Time Block Planner once this one runs out, however: I want to customize my layout and plan to use the Hobonichi Cousin as a substitute. (Note: the Time Block Planner 2.0 with the spiral binding uses thicker paper that works with fountain pens.)
Project-Specific Binders. Plotter and William Hannah. I use these ringed notebooks as “binders” to organize notes on the projects that I’m actively working. These binders tend to live on my desk where I can access them when I’m working on the specific project to which the notebook is dedicated. The one exception is the William Hannah, which serves as my “law notebook” and goes with me everywhere since the realities of legal practice requires that I have quick access to my case notes. My A5 Plotter houses T.G.S., and the Bible-Sized Plotter contains notes from a creative writing project I’ve been pursuing for several years and which I’ve decided to finish.
Personal Journal. Hobonichi Techo A6. I felt the most “put together” when I consistently took 20 minutes at the end of each day to reflect in my Hobonichi. The A6 page is small enough not to feel intimidating, and you can always write larger to fill it up a page with fewer lines if time runs short or you’re simply exhausted. I don’t plan on using a Hobonichi Cover. Rather, I’m going to choose a Roterfaden in the A6 size. The leather and recycled-leather Taschenbegleiters are just big enough to fit a standard Hobonichi A6, though you may be limited to just the Hobonichi or the Hobonichi + a slimmer second notebook. (I plan to carry just the Hobonichi in the cover and use the multiple clips to mark off different sections of the Planner.)

This proposed setup isn’t all that different from my current rotation, just more streamlined, which suggests that after a decade of experimentation I’m finally settling into a long-term system that works for me. If you were to ask me what notebooks I envision having in my bag at any given time, I would say it will be (1) the Hobonichi Cousin and a Plotter Notepad in my A5 Roterfaden; and (2) the William Hannah, which are pictured at top. The Plotter A5 will live on my TGS office desk, and the Plotter Bible in my home office with my personal journal. Again, the goal is to stay organized and focused by having separation between the (very) different worlds in which I spend my time, while still preserving flexibility where necessary.

Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter Stacked Notebooks in front of Joe's Bookcase — Though you can (and should) take my opinion with a grain of salt since T.G.S. is a Roterfaden retailer, I’ve used the Taschenbegleiter Organizers for years, and love their versatility as dedicated binders that can be used to organize specific projects, or simply as portfolios to hold papers and writing pads.

While these are the notebooks that I plan to use most often, I do keep a multitude of others in rotation, including an A4 Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter with larger format paper for longhand drafting; my Midori 5-Year Diary that I irregularly update as a 30,000-foot record of my life, and a Standard Traveler’s Notebook that’s both my periodic travel journal and pen club notebook. For those who will ask, I do use my Plotter Mini-5 as my wallet, and it’s also an excellent “capture” notebook for when I simply want to go out with a notebook in my pocket and not lug around a bag. That said, none of these are mission-critical to my workflow, and I don’t allow myself to get stressed if I’m not using them regularly because they have specific purposes that don’t arise on a daily basis.

I don’t consider myself a productivity nerd - I’ve actually come to dislike the term “productivity” as it evokes widget-cranking and isn’t consistent with how I believe people actually want to live and work - but I do have a longstanding fascination with information management and how people organize their time and thoughts using both analog and digital tools and systems. Of course, this led me to notebooks, notebook systems, and anything remotely related. Have you developed your own system for keeping your life (relatively) organized? Drop a comment or send me a message through the site. I’m all ears!

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. This post does not contain third-party affiliate links or paid advertising.