A local stationery brand is changing the planner game and stationery fans are taking notice, writes Syida Lizta Amirul Ihsan.
The media industry has changed tremendously and some say print media may be at the tail end of its existence.
Zeejay Wong, founder and creative director of local stationery brand ana tomy, is unperturbed.
The 36-year-old web designer flew to Australia many years ago and bought a printing press, took it home and built a niche business out if it.
Instead of moving from print to digital, Wong has taken the opposite route. “We are very well-versed in digital but we believe that digital and letter press printing can co-exist without cannibalising each other,” he says.
REDUCING WASTAGE
The brand was founded three years ago with notebooks but those were hard to sell and scale up. So the team sat down and thought about how to personalise notebooks and planners according to customer preference.
They came up with the idea of mass customisation of the product. Every component, from cover and paper insert to rubber strap and metal binder, is dissected and deconstructed.
When you walk into ana tomy at Wisma Zhongshan, Kampung Attap, you won’t find any ready-made notebooks, but shelves of paper that you can customise to make your own.
“Our biggest motivation is to reduce wastage. Unsold products become dead stock. Money and resources are wasted. We wanted to find a way to overcome this.
“When we separate the components, we don’t waste. We can print different papers more or less according to demand. And while we address the wastage issue, we also make products that are thoughtful.”
“You can come up with millions of combinations and the process of making your own notebook and planner becomes an interesting and adventurous one,” he says.
PLANNING THE PLANNER
While we talk, no less than five people walk in to make their own planners. And if you think the current generation is so dependent on their devices for note writing, ana tomy customers will prove you otherwise.
Some come in and instantly know what they want and spend less than five minutes to build their planners. Others, like me, stand there for minutes, unsure of what kind of paper I need — blank, ruled, graph, recipe journal or habit tracker — for my planner.
It’s almost as if I have been spoon-fed for so long that when I am given the freedom to decide what should go into my planner, I don’t know how to do it. And that’s another reason why I like this brand — ana tomy forces its customers to think.
“Our sale this year is much better than last year and that goes to show just how popular writing is. People write short notes or lists on their phones, but writing on paper gives you a certain therapeutic effect which machines can never replicate, and I think that’s why planners and journals are so popular,” he says.
PAPER CHASE
The brand uses ethically-sourced papers from Italy and the United States because Wong says Malaysia doesn’t produce good quality paper for writing. Its papers are tested with different writing instruments to make sure the ink doesn’t bleed.
The brand pays close attention to its notebook inserts because people prefer different types of paper. Wong sketches, so he prefers blank pages. Those who prefer writing like ruled papers. There’s even a combination of graph and blank paper on the same page and an option of either a vertical or horizontal weekly planner.
“This is a bespoke item. And the inserts are as important as the cover because the inserts are where the writings are. Like they say, content is king.”
FAST FACTS: ana tomy
WHAT: Local stationery label
WHERE: Its store in Wisma Zhongshan, Kampung Attap or
MUST-HAVE: Classic series custom notebook and planner
WHY: You get to choose the paper you use most often so there will be no unsused pages
PRICE: RM128 and RM138