Traveling and Designing

We just launched new designs for BK original products. I am so excited to say that all these ideas came out based on our experiences during the summer months in Japan and Germany, and in many ways, they are condensed essence of our insights and learnings. Travel does so many wonders to our creative souls and if you have an opportunity to step away from your everyday routines and pursue your creative passion, definitely do it!! I absolutely stand behind the idea. 

The new designs are all currently manifested in rubber stamps. I am hoping that together, we can spread these message out to the whole world! 

Love for Analogue

For many years, Frido and I have been searching for inspiration and ideas to visualize our love for all things analogue. 

During our stay in Germany, we were reunited with vintage letterpress typography blocks which have been a part of our family treasure for many decades. These wooden blocks triggered the design inspiration.

Each letter was physically laid out by Frido one piece at a time to create the composition that is authentic and unique. Instead of using the letterpress process to create the design impression, we have used watercolor to transfer the design. We hope you enjoy watching a short video that captures a part of our design process. 

Time is Now

Is it a stamp or is it a reminder? We are happy to be both. The design of "Time is Now" was born through our personal life experience to be present. To live and feel as each moment unfolds. 

We hope you will be able to use this stamp as a gentle reminder for your every day.

Always + Forever

We have always gravitated to the idea of "Always + Forever" in our relationship with our loved ones. We appreciate that it requires our actions from every day to create something long-lasting and beautiful. 

As we flipped through a vintage gardening book during our stay in Europe, we came upon a page where it described different messages garden layouts could be embedded with. One of them was the forever love, and we knew that it was a sweet inspiration to conceptualize the design. 

We hope that you will be able to continue to celebrate small milestones throughout the course of the relationship as a chain of infinite hearts represent. 

Cherry Blossom MINI  

The design inspiration comes from our admiration of cherry blossom and its seasonal cycle. We appreciate that cherry blossom is beautiful when it is full bloom as well as when it starts to fall which is an excellent example of the "wabi-sabi" philosophy. 

The MINI size is perfect for adding vignette details to your planners and journals. Also just the right size for a postcard accent. 

The Journey is the Destination

The statement "The Journey is the Destination" has been our guiding principle through our Baum-kuchen journey since 2010. We are excited to share our updated design to capture the essence of the message. 

The design of "JOURNEY" comes from a stenciled graphic that was physically punched out by a vintage stenciling machine originally used to label oil barrels. We then fused the design of "JOURNEY" with inspiration from vintage labels. 

Life is Travel "Slow Express"

We have always told ourselves that "Life is Travel". It's full of adventures, discoveries, and companionships. While we (BK family) spent sunny summer in the city of Hamburg, we have watched many container ships go by on the river Elbe. Slowly but steadily. The idea of these ships visiting many cities all over the world has inspired us to create the vintage travel poster inspired design. 

We hope that this design will be an inspiration and a gentle reminder for you to keep moving forward in life. Slow and steady at your own pace. 

Analogue Refill

As a part of the BK Analogue Tribe, we love refilling analogue energy for like-minded pen and paper enthusiasts. 

I am sure you can relate!

We hope this stamp gets utilized in many different places including your journal pages, postcards, and an everyday memo to your friends and families as a way to share your love for analogue.

Up Close and Personal with Roterfaden

I had the honor to visit Roterfaden headquarter in the city of Saarbrücken last week to meet Beate, the owner of Roterfaden and see a glimpse of behind the scene. We have been representing Roterfaden for 5 years (where did the time go by??) at Baum-kuchen and have always really appreciated working with the Roterfaden team because they are so thorough and thoughtful in their working relationship.

After spending a day with Beate and talking everything from family life, business operation, to what's next for Roterfaden, I came home feeling energized and confident with our BK studio motto, "first and foremost, we are personally in love with what we share at Baum-kuchen not only the artifacts but also people who are behind those artifacts ". I always thought this was very important for us but now... more than ever, I feel incredibly strong about it.

What makes Roterfaden so authentic, beautiful, and innovative? From our conversation, I learned Beate is a designer and a conscientious business owner. I saw so many evidence that she tinkers, creates, and prototypes her ideas rigorously. And I understood that the smart clip system and holistic branding of Roterfaden have been her true labor of love. I also really appreciate that she works with a network of artisans to make Roterfaden come alive. There are so many creatives behind every component of the Roterfaden and Beate personally works with each one of them to ensure the quality of each Roterfaden cover is the best it can be while the process continues to support other small businesses of makers and creatives.

Her passion for sourcing materials locally is also a differentiator for Roterfaden. She is keen on ensuring that Roterfaden is produced most sustainably. This philosophy touches from where she gets her materials to using each material most consciously without sacrificing her design. She is constantly hunting for a new idea of using recycled materials such as nylon fabric that is harvested from unused high-quality tents. (Have you seen the ST_17 Roterfaden cover which uses the upcycled tent materials??)

During our day together, we started discussing the ideas for our future collaborations. Yes. Beate and I made a huge creative mess in their back room!! And I think that's what it takes to pursue a raw idea together. Being there with open mindedness, talking about what we each believe in, playing with materials in our hands, sketching, and laughing together. I can't wait to share some of the ideas to come true in the near future. For now... I hope you enjoy a little snipets of my Roterfaden visit on our YouTube channel!

Travel with Kids // Hamburg, Germany

Hello from Hamburg, Germany!
We have always traveled with our little ones through thick and thin. One thing we realized after trying out different travel itinerary type, planning (and then tossing out the plan once we get there) around kids' needs makes the travel so much more fun and meaningful to our family than following cookie-cutter tourist spots.

Our kids especially love animals, nature, and treasure hunting so we have included some fun and family-friendly spots to visit in and around the city of Hamburg!

The Elbe River
Our family spent so much time bicycling up and down The Elbe. If Frido and I ask the girls what they would like to do on a sunny day, they would surely tell us "go to the Elbe" with their English-German accent. Along the Elbe, we have found so many "favorite hung out spots" between the city and Blankenese to enjoy the family beach day while marveling giant container ships go by the Elbe. My favorite day would include some beach time for kids to run around and splash then sit at the open cafe along the Elbe to enjoy cold beverages and Currywurst (the popular street food with German sausages drenched in ketchup and curry powder... so good!!!). StrandPerle definitely is one of the fun cafes to stop by. We have only been there during the daytime but heard it would be fun to visit in the evening to enjoy the view of the whole harbor twinkle with lights!

Wildpark Schwarze Berge
Satchi and Coco LOVE animals so visiting this wild park was a huge treat for our family. The park is located 30 minutes drive from the city on the other side of the Elbe River. We spent a whole day there! Our favorite was to feed wild pigs that were running around the walking path (they had clever ways to make sure they don't run away), playing with goats (and so many baby goats!!!), climbing a huge tower to view the whole city of Hamburg, and watching the bird show!

The park uses the natural landscape as a way to navigate and they have done such a great job. Walking through the park feels like walking through a forest with wild animals roaming around us.

Treasure hunting at flea markets!
There seems to be some kind of flea markets every weekend in the city. When kids were younger, it was hard for them to enjoy crowded markets but now they are 5 & 8, we can spend little more time hunting for heirloom artifacts. Hunting for treasures at a flea market must be one of Frido's favorite destination activities!

Traveling with BK Sketch Notebook and Traveler's Notebook

Since our family started traveling in mid-June, I have been carrying my Traveler's Notebook everywhere. It's my wallet and my journal all at the same time. And maybe because we are away from home, I feel that holding my TN grounds me more than ever.

I finished my first travel refill and moved into the 2nd one. I'm using BK Sketch Notebook and loving it! Ame has recommended Global Arts Papers to be outstanding mixed-media papers and she was totally right. The pages have the mat tactility with just enough texture, and it works so well with fountain pens and watercolor paint. I also really appreciate the notebook cover Frido designed for this refill. We wanted to create an open-ended feel where the blank notebook does not intimidate anyone to start using... so all the design elements on the cover are hand drawn and written by Frido using his favorite mechanical pencil from Modern Fuel.

I know I will treasure my travel journal so much for many years to come.

Stamping away with joy at Traveler's Factories!

Between our stay in Ishigaki Island and the final travel destination, Germany, we spent one night in Tokyo. We arrived in mid-afternoon, and we only had time until the next morning, so we kept our time simple. We booked a hotel nearby Tokyo station because we knew to arrive at Haneda airport from Ishigaki and to depart from Narita airport to Hamburg, Germany would be fairly accessible from there. We were also looking forward to visiting the Traveler's Factory in Tokyo Station.

Traveler's Factory, Tokyo Station
Maybe because I never lived in a metropolitan city with large transit facilities..., but Tokyo Station was pretty over the top for my senses. The underground avenues below the train stations that were laid out like spider webs very much felt like a giant maze to me. I researched ahead of time where the Traveler's Factory was inside of this large station, but it still took us a while to find it.

It was helpful to know that the store was inside of the section called "GrandSta Marunouchi". I kept asking people where this area was and once we were inside of the GrandSta Marunochi section, we were able to find an area map that gave us detail directions. I found out later that a part of the GrandSta Marunouchi (but not the whole) was inside of the paid part of the train station terminal (inside of the actual JR station) where you could only access with purchased train tickets. We bought the cheapest tickets even though we didn't need to ride any trains only to find out that Traveler's Factory was actually 'outside' of the train terminal. Ah! But we did find it after all, and all four of us had a lot of fun adding some exclusive stamps to our notebooks. Some of the special stamps featured different prefectures of Japan, so of course, we added: "Shizuoka," "Tokyo" and "Okinawa" to our pages.

On our last day in Japan as we were departing from Narita Airport, we had a few hours of an unexpected flight delay, so we luckily got to make a quick stop at Traveler's Factory in Narita Airport and once again stamped on our pages. At this store, the exclusive stamps featured different countries you could visit! I really loved how Traveler's Company differentiated the offerings based on the location of the stores. Satchi made a page on her TN refill about places she would like to visit. It included Egypt, Brazil, and Africa:)

Both stores are very compact and fun stops to make if you are trespassing the area.

To my joy, both of our girls are finally enjoying the art of adding stamps to different journal pages. It was delightful to watch Satchi and Coco's intentional face as they added different designs to their pages.

Play & Breathe // Ishigaki Island, Japan

I believe every "travel" has its purpose and meaning to contribute to our family and life. More often we don't know what the purpose is meant to be until we embark on the journey or even after we return home. Or do we simply find what we are looking for when we travel because our senses are more accute?

I don't think we knew what to truly expect from our stay in Ishigaki Island. When we picked the location to visit back in February, we just wanted to be somewhere outdoor-oriented and warm. Warm enough for all of us to swim and spend time together as a family after having an incredibly full winter and spring at our home in Los Angeles.

What we felt from our 8 days on Ishigaki Island was the beautiful void and emptiness in our minds that resulted from the constant mode of simply being. Interestingly, we never knew how full and busy our minds were until we experienced how empty and still they could be.

The island is slow paced. No freeways. No crowdedness. It's surrounded by beautiful blue emerald ocean and corals and the land is covered in dark green jungle. It's so hot, humid, and high in UV that it's unbearable to be outside during the mid-day. But being out in the nature in the morning and early afternoon feels cleansing almost like being in the sauna room. We were lucky to have arrived right at the end of the island's rainy season.

Where we stayed:
As we usually do, we rented an Airbnb house which was a renovated traditional dwelling that had charming details of what used to be with updated kitchen and bathroom. Renting a house allowed us to cook most of our meals and had enough space for us to spend time and relax indoor during the hot mid-day. We journaled, studied, and wrote tons of postcards from our dining table. Girls played for hours with what we had at our home away home. Jumping between futon piles, making a pretend game with their beloved stuffed animals, and playing the game of Yahtzee with Frido...

Yonehara Beach:
Beaches in Ishigaki were beyond amazing. More than anything, we were taken away by how uncrowded these beautiful beaches were. Each beach has its own charm but one of our favorite beaches we kept going back was Yonehara Beach. We visited the beach at low-tide and mid-tide. We rented life vests at a general store located in the parking lot and enjoyed snorkeling for hours. The part of the beach had a sign for rip current warnings so we stayed close to the shore but sea life was abundant and full of exciting discoveries for all of us.

 

A day trip to Taketomi Island:
15 minutes ferry ride from Ishigaki Island took us to Taketomi Island which had visually stunning traditional dwellings and a village that has been preserved over time. We started the day as early as we could to beat the heat! We rented bikes and explored different parts of the island. Frido's favorite part was looking for a star-shaped sand that is truly unique to this island and Satchi's favorite part was riding a bike. I loved sitting at the beach and staring at the water...

 

Bits and pieces of delicious eats:
We didn't eat out a lot but here are some of our favorite finds!

Cafe Sunkiss
This cafe was recommended by a lifeguard we met on our second day in Ishigaki. It was a warm day (as usual in Ishigaki) so all the other guests were eating inside but I LOVED sitting on the shaded patio. A perfect post-beach lunch with sand between our toes.

Blue Cafe
After eating a lot of Japanese noodles, we were ready for something else and we couldn't have asked for more! Great iced coffee, pizza, waffles...


Ishigakijima Reika 
I was in search of a traditional "Kaki-Gori" (shaved ice) in Okinawa. I told Frido that I wasn't going to leave the island until I find one. So I was thrilled to walk into this charming establishment in the city of Ishigaki. Flavors and ambiance were both exactly what I was looking for.

I knew that our stay in Ishigaki was necessary and essential because immediately after we arrived at Hamburg (our next and final destination for our summer travel), I started writing. Multiple new stories, ideas, and creative contents are getting ready for Baum-kuchen as I type this story. My creative juice is flowing again because I had an opportunity to empty my mind that has been overflown with a plate full of projects and responsibilities for last few months.

I am sure that I will continue to feel the effects of our time in Ishigaki for many days, weeks, months ahead. And that's why traveling is magical. Small or big. It shifts the course of our life just like that.