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PHOTOGRAPHY
DANIQUE VAN KESTEREN
BACKGROUND
PATTERNS
SHUTTERSTOCK
You can follow us on flowmagazine.com, (flow_magazine),
(Flow Magazine INT) and (Flow Magazine).[email protected] [email protected]The other day we were talking about why paper
makes us so happy. It’s mostly because so
many good memories are connected to paper.
The note received from the cutest boy in first
grade—Richard—with the words ‘I luv you’
(Irene); the homemade, limited-edition family
newspaper, written on an old typewriter (Astrid);
the letter in a blue airmail envelope from a
brand-new summer-vacation friend—Fabienne,
in France—in 1981 (Irene); the booklets made
as gifts for your parents’ birthdays (Astrid); the
diaries we filled with photos of the idols of our
youth (both of us): they’re all paper.
We used to worry that people’s love of
paper was on the wane in this new digital era
and that no one would understand the thrill
of a blank notebook any more—which is as
exciting as the first day of spring. Or the
contentment of hearing the newspaper thud
on the doormat on a Saturday morning. Or
how great a new Flow smells and feels when
you hold it in your hands.
But now we know we have nothing
to worry about. Paper is back, and has
made itself indispensable once again. It’smarvelous how it has reinvented itself. Once
it was a commonplace and utilitarian object;
now it’s so much more. Paper has come to
stand for slowing down, taking a time-out
moment, paying attention, reliability. All the
latest studies are positive about paper’s
future. Research done by WeTransfer about
creativity shows that 40 percent of
respondents prefer recording their ideas in
a paper notebook instead of storing them
digitally. Other research shows respondents
saying they remember information much
better when they read it on paper.
We are and will always be paper lovers.
You can wake us up in the middle of the
night for a handwritten letter, a crisp new
notebook, a box of stationery, or a gift tag on
a string loop. Also for a beautiful illustration
in a magazine, that we like to tear out and
hang on the wall. We’ll always keep enjoying
paper—how it smells, how it feels, how it
always is a little gift to yourself. And, now,
also how it helps you slow down. For us
paper is the new yoga!Paper Love