The Hand-Made Magic of Life Stationery

Even compared to cult favourites like Delfonics and Midori, Life Stationery is one of the paper world's best kept secrets. Hard to find outside its native Japan, this tiny business has been making a beautiful range of notebooks and notepads in the workshop just outside Tokyo for more than 70 years now. What was to become Life Stationery was founded in 1946 by Yasuhiro Saito, after working as an apprentice to a paper manufacturer. A few years later, after wartime rationing ended, Saito recognised the new opportunities for the future of his country and his business by calling the company LIFE. Since then, each Life Stationery notebook and notepad has been made by hand in that humble workshop, with a small team of skilled artisans hand-gluing, hand-trimming and hand-sorting every single product they make. That hand-made feel is an essential part of the Life Stationery magic – each page is crisp and graceful, with the kind of quality control that bigger operations just can't manage. That small-scale production allows the business to be much more flexible. Life doesn't employ a single designer – instead, the team works together with paper suppliers, printers etc to develop their range. And that shared responsibility goes hand-in-hand with the Japanese principle kaizen, which translates to "change for the better", or "continuous improvement". With such a simple range and a small team who know the range inside and out, not to mention 70-plus years of experience, it's easy to see how Life Stationery produce such perfectly-crafted notebooks. Check out the full range of Life Stationery products here, or keep scrolling for more photos of the workshop where all magic happens.

More articles

WHY SHOP WITH MILLIGRAM

HELP

ABOUT US

BRANDS

More articles

WHY SHOP WITH MILLIGRAM

NEW TO MILLIGRAM? LET’S BE FRIENDS

HELP

ABOUT US

BRANDS