Lifestyle Week Tokyo is one of Japan’s largest trade fairs, drawing over 40,000 professionals across eleven exhibitions—from homeware and fashion to sustainable goods and stationery. We came to test something specific: how the iA Notebook would resonate in the country where it was designed, built, and now awarded.
Internationally, the response has been strong. We sold out batch after batch. And we had already won the Red Dot Best of Best Award. What more could we want? To us, it was still somewhat theoretical. We wanted to experience how people reacted when they saw it. What they thought, what they felt, we wanted to see their facial expressions evolve as they learned about it and as they used it.
First Reactions
Japan sets the bar very high for paper goods. It’s home to the most discerning stationery audience in the world. On top of that, we would talk to one of the most critical crowds imaginable: distributors and big Japanese chain vendors. So we were also a bit nervous. Would they find flaws? Would they find those we knew about? Would they find some we didn’t know about?
From the moment the fair opened, visitors lined up at our small stand. They didn’t just glance—they approached, talked, and wrote. They tested the paper, flipped through it, examined every detail, asked sharp questions, and brought back colleagues. The most common reaction after seeing the optical effect was: “Eeeeeh, sugoooooi.”
2025 Japan Stationery of the Year ISOT Award
Then the news broke: the iA Notebook had won the 2025 Japan Stationery of the Year ISOT Award (第34回日本文具大賞) in the Design category.
This marks our third major design recognition this year, alongside the Red Dot: Best of the Best and our place as a finalist for Apple’s 2025 Design Awards. Germany, California, Tokyo, three very different cultures, one shared appreciation: focus, clarity, and craft. People started queuing up at our stand.
Like winning Sushi of the Year
What made this one special was where it happened. Japan has a deep culture of paper and stationery. Of course, we knew we could produce a great notebook here. If you make Sushi in Japan, you have to start at a higher level than in Switzerland. But you also subject yourself to far tougher scrutiny.
Letting Japanese grade your sushi rice is a chilling prospect. Winning here, judged by experts and shown alongside some of Japan’s most refined designs, felt like waking up from a nice dream into a sunny morning.
Among the many visitors was Japan’s legendary “stationery king” (yes, he exists), who shared generous and thoughtful feedback. Teams of buyers took photos from every angle, making us almost as nervous as the camera shutter. Distributors from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, and the U.S. showed strong interest.
What started as a small internal project, a response to customers asking for a simple “iA” t-shirt, has turned into something much bigger. The Notebook was meant as a quiet present. It has quickly taken a resounding presence on our product shelf.
