Andrew's dream...
Andrew’s dream was to design, build and operate his own stationery business, he says “there is just something about stationery”, he’ll work it out one day, but at the moment he’s too busy with the next phase of House of Penfax. Andrew wanted to bring together his retail experience (John Lewis Partnership and the Pen Shop) and create something quite unique within the stationery world. He spent a whole day just thinking up the name.
He designed the retail concept some time ago; to him retail is an ever-changing environment and the concept had to be simple and able to adapt to such changes. Firstly, ‘form follows function’, a rule he says most days to someone! But the shop concept had to be mobile, easy to adapt to new layouts and new products, hence, all the units are on wheels literally, but not just any wheels these are 60kg load-bearing, with ball-bearings of course, so they glide across the shop floor, well almost. Ask Angela! The display units are built from 18mm FSC plywood and constructed by hand and the shelves are held up using ‘banjo brackets’ – they don’t play a tune, but do look good . Andrew’s latest creation is the revolving Christmas tree display – see photo.
Andrew’s love of stationery is a mystery, but when he was 10 years old he was given a box of Stabilo 68’s felt tip pens, which still work to this day, which may have something to do with it. Probably one of the main reasons he loves stationery is his passion for design, especially functional design. Basically, he sees stationery as always trying to invent better and improved ways of recording, storing, filing and communicating information, whether in the office or home, there is always something new. Andrew studied furniture, industrial and spatial design at Newcastle Art College and has applied the same thinking to most things in life, he says there are not many things that don’t start life without a pencil and piece of paper to hand.
Today Andrew runs Penfax with Angela on sales and Tom online, and is in the shop most days, unless he’s making something...
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