For SzeToo WeiWen, she began journaling when she was six years old, and she continued the habit well into her teenage years. At the time, it was just something she did to cope with the changes in life, as her family moved around a lot: “You write to remember, and you write to move on from something.”
Little did WeiWen know that a habit she cultivated since young would someday transpire into an establishment like Stickerrific, the only go-to journal-centric stationery store in Klang Valley. “Actually, I didn’t want to start the store. I’m the last person to do business, because I don’t think I have the tenacity for it!” WeiWen recalls with a sheepish smile.
She was doing photography for magazines and weddings at the time, when in 2014, she set up an Instagram account to sell journaling paraphernalia. It wasn’t until 2015 that Stickerrific moved into its brick and mortar store in Jaya One.
Stickerrific piques the interest of many with its all-encompassing catalogue of journaling needs: from basic pens and inks by renowned brands like Kaweco, Sakura, Tachikawa and Jinhao; to notebooks and sketchbooks by Hobonichi, Leuchtturm 1917, Midori and Traveler’s Notebook; to journaling accessories such as washi tapes, stickers, watercolour paint brushes and wax seals.
“A lot of the things I do for the store are rather unconventional. Our executions for the store are based on gut feelings and hunches,” she adds. “We do what we think are right for the customers. We aim to please, because we can’t seem to say ‘no’ to our customers, and that’s how things transcended into the way it is today.”
How do you package Stickerrific, a brand that is all about the analogue lifestyle, to fit into this modern era?
When we started off, we’d just take pictures of our products, and we realised that a lot of people may not know how to use the items. It doesn’t spark any sort of interest or creativity, and it doesn’t inspire them to pick up this hobby. It’s the same as seeing a fashion item in an article or social media: when you see someone dressed in it, modelling it in a stylised shot in an everyday environment, it makes you want to go get it for yourself so that you may experience that moment you see in the picture. So, we decided to put up a lot of samples online. We’d make samples of everything in the shop, and we’d show customers what you could do with the products we have – that it’s something that any regular Joe can achieve on his own; you don’t have to be a talented painter, and you don’t have to have a degree in graphic designing to do this. It’s just putting away a few hours a day to work on whatever little creativity that comes to mind.
How is the journaling community in Malaysia?
The funny thing about people is, everyone doesn’t want to be that one crazy person
doing something on his or her own. If you like something, you’d try to drag your friends into it as well. This is something that works to our favour, because since the establishment of Stickerrific, we have never really done any form of advertising; it has always been through word of mouth. The friends that our customers bring along would later on bring other friends to visit our store – it’s like a domino effect.
The workshops we host monthly help as well, because it’s not just people learning a
new skill, it’s also about people with the same interest mingling and hanging out together. We see our customers becoming friends before our eyes; they’d follow each other on social media, and they’d even choose Stickerrific as their hang out spot, where they can keep this common interest going together by bouncing ideas off each other, and finding different ways to log their journal entries.
Why do you think journaling is enjoying a comeback right now, especially in the digital age?
With social media, we have reached a point where we are putting a lot of ourselves online. The content doesn’t feel like it’s for us anymore, and there are people who would like to do something for themselves again. I suppose that’s where journaling comes in, because it gives people a non-digital platform to truly do something for themselves with their own two hands – something that is more personal, and requires a bit more effort. Like peace of mind in a time of war, it’s something that’s very therapeutic that you don’t experience in this modern digital era anymore.
Would you say that journaling is a trend, or something that is going to last for a while longer?
Personally, for me, it’s not a trend; it’s something I’ve been doing my whole life. I’d hate to think of it as a trend. Maybe in terms of certain styles of journaling, they can be a trend. There are people out there who think journaling is an expensive hobby, because anything you buy to cultivate the hobby can get expensive. But at the end of the day, what you really need is just a pen and a book – there’s nothing more to it. It just boils down to what kind of price you would put on your memories. For the same amount of money you spend in journaling accessories, you could perhaps get a cup of Starbucks coffee or bubble tea; yet for the same price, you could also translate it into something you can keep forever – isn’t that more meaningful in comparison?