The story behind Present & Correct, the perfectly curated stationery shop that’s every graphic designers dream

I find it hard to coherently put into words my love for the London-based stationery store Present & Correct. I’ll readily admit that to somehow translate in just a few paragraphs the joy its lovingly hand-picked collection gives me as a designer felt like a daunting task. So I turned to the store’s (beautiful) Instagram page to see what love notes had been left in the comments for some inspiration... and got quite carried away. Alongside Pentagram partner Marina Willer’s: “OMG!!!!!” in response to the opening of the brand’s new store location in Bloomsbury in 2023 (which sums things up pretty well), many have declared it to be “the most wonderful and unique stationery store in the world”, or their “all time favourite space to be”. On this expertly shot pano of the store, someone has asked: “Would you have a place for me to sleep?”. Even the comments that might, at first glance, appear to be negative are actually just self preserving: “It’s a good thing I don’t live close to you (for my bank account).”

As fellow print ephemera lovers and self-professed stationery nerds at It’s Nice That, we’ve been itching to interview the store’s co-founders and graphic designers, Neal Whittington and Mark Smith, about their exquisitely curated collection for quite some time. There seemed to be no better occasion to do this than the recent release of Present & Correct’s very first book: Paper Trails: Pre-war tourist maps from Japan, an archive of illustrated maps Neal came across rummaging in Tokyo’s famous book town Jinbocho last year, before photographing and collating them into a 136 page paperback, now available in store or on the shop‘s site. Released under the brand’s new imprint P&C Additions, this first foray into publishing has developed as quite a natural offshoot to Mark and Neal’s constant collecting – one that the pair plan to expand upon with each new ephemeral discovery that they make.

To talk more about this publishing journey and the designers’ joint practice, we spoke to Neal about the story of Present & Correct to date, tracing his habits of collecting and archiving all the way back to a childhood spent carefully putting away scrapbooks of sugar sachets, napkins, postcards and coasters, his final major project at art school (a paper concept store called… Present & Correct), to their joint travels across the world today, foraging for original vintage stationery to curate the shop’s stocks from over 18 different countries.

The brand, creative project and ongoing archive filled us with hope that childhood dreams actually do come true. Our conversation with Neal was also a reminder that setting out to collect or create something purely to satisfy your own creative itch can often be the very thing that ends up connecting to people the most. Present & Correct really is a place built on the mining of childhood interests and personal joys for material instead of thinking about a particular audience or customer. It just so happened to become more than one graphic designer’s dream shop.

Q&A with Neal Whittington co-founder of Present & Correct

It’s Nice That (INT): Firstly, we’d love to find out a bit about the start of P&C – what led you and Mark to open the online store back in 2009? Was opening a stationery shop a spontaneous idea that sparked between the two of you or had it always been a bit of a dream?

Neal Whittington (NW): It definitely wasn’t spontaneous (I’m too cautious of a person!) and yes it had always been a bit of a dream. Since I was a child I have bought stationery and craft supplies more than anything else. I loved the village post office and WHSmith vouchers on my birthday. My final major project at art college was a paper concept store called… Present & Correct.

In 2009 I was working in a branding studio, and had been there for maybe 6 years or so, and during the day I was online a lot. At this time there was a real culture of small online stores, largely in the US. Rudimentary sites where people were making their own stationery, selling vintage things etc, and there was a great blog network that supported these businesses.

It looked so fun and I saw it as a way to develop what I had been doing in real life, which was making envelopes, notebooks, cards and selling them alongside vintage stationery in shops around London and on market stalls. I got to travel a lot with my job at that time and had been collecting stationery along the way, becoming familiar with brands (also much credit to my old boss for introducing me to many Japanese and Korean companies, and having me work on the branding for one).

The first iteration of P&C was based in a tiny flat with most of the stock under the bed, sofa and in kitchen cupboards. The second was in a spare room when Mark & I moved in together and the 3rd was my first shop in 2012.

INT: On the site you say that P&C is a showcase for the things we have enjoyed since you were kids: “A long-term obsession with stationery has culminated in a constantly evolving store. Paper and office objects which are inspired by homework, the post office and school.” Is this element of nostalgia something you are chasing in all the things you collect – what feels so precious to you about design objects and print ephemera of the past?

NW:It’s a bit magical that you could find, for example, a bundle of 30 notebooks that are from the 1960s, take them home, put them in your shop and know that they are limited. Once they’re gone that’s it. In an age where there is a lot of the same all over the place we chase that feeling for ourselves and for P&C.

On a different level we find things where the style and production seems way ahead of the time, largely because modern day work harks back to it. I got some 1920s brand promotional stamps in Munich in the spring, the typography was great but also the die cutting and embossing was insanely good. The illustrations on old stamps, lottery tickets, hotel luggage labels have also set the bench mark for so many modern day illustrative styles. There can be too much nostalgia but we definitely believe in having elements that invoke that feeling. It can be comforting or fun, or clever if worked into something new.

INT: One of the things that makes the store so unique is that it stocks some of your own designs as well as those finds you have both come across on your travels. You’re always foraging for vintage items around the world (many of which we keep up with on your instagram highlights and stories). How do you know where to find all the best stuff! Can you tell us a bit about your research process?

NW:Having done this for so long I know which markets and shops will have the goods, largely around France, Germany and Belgium. And there are some collectors and stall holders which I know will be there, whose email addresses I have. I try new markets when I can, some I will go back to, but others I can see aren’t going to be right for us.

Aside from this there is a great deal of luck and research involved. We went to Mexico City in February and pinpointed dead stock paper stores, old book shops and flea markets. Usually found by asking people or Googling in the language of where you are. In Tokyo last year I trekked way out of town to the most insane store that I will never share because it will be ruined by social media! I found that by Googling different phrases in Japanese.

And we love to walk, that’s important. So much walking (a recent flea market took 8.5 hours to complete one lap). In cities is when you see a random looking run down spot that could deliver – in Venice the other year we saw a dense, dusty place that we could see was full of old stationery. It was closed the whole time we were there and that was absolute torture. And in Puglia one evening, quite late at night, we went into a cigarette shop where there was a glass cabinet full of 1960s graph paper books. Crazy luck. I bought them all! That was a summer holiday, not a buying trip, but we’re always looking.

Finally – a recent development since our physical shop moved to a more prominent location – is that customers bring us things. Recently a visitor from Kuwait brought loads of old computer punch cards, and another handed over a box of old paperclips her dad had collected throughout the years. One, from Portugal, wrote down the name of a shop in a small town that allegedly has lots of deadstock... We hope to go soon!

INT:This habit of archiving and collecting vintage ephemera has informed your first self-published book at P&C Paper Trails: Pre-war tourist maps from Japan featuring fifty incredibly illustrated maps for various attractions around Japan! Can you tell us a bit about how the book came together?

NW: Last April I went to Tokyo on my own, Mark had to go home to New Zealand and we had been several times but this was my first solo trip. So I went full on nerd and walked from 9-11 every day it seemed, around new areas and parts of town I hadn’t explored as much before. One of them was Jinbocho, which is a Book Town. Hundreds of new and old book stores of all sizes but also ephemera stores; up stairs, in basements, hidden and dense. In one I sifted through hundreds of these old maps, early 20th century. Some were pretty expensive but I retrieved a lot that were more affordable, all amazingly illustrated. When I got home we both said almost instantly that they would make a lovely book.

INT: As designers, why do you think collecting or archiving has become such an important part of your practice? Why is collecting something that creatives are so drawn to doing?

NW: It’s maybe some sort of aesthetic lust! A combination of seeing and wanting, longing to own and also a desire to utilise those things to enhance your work. They feel like previously unseen, design archaeology?!

Building a physical reference is fun, people have been doing that forever but now I feel like those points of reference have shifted to things that were once overlooked. How exciting that tiny, every day pieces of paper could bring inspiration – and how accessible that is too.

INT: Lastly, we’d love to know what you think about the continued relevance of these objects and ephemera collections in a contemporary context. Why is it important to reshare and distribute them amongst the graphic design community?

NW: I love that it’s a counter to the constant feed of new that we are all subjected to and the sheer volume of amazing type, illustration, icons, patterns that can be found throughout historical applications feels overwhelming in the best way. I kind of see it as educational, reminding us all to look beyond that flow of new design and appreciate the every day. An album of 150 old sugar cube wrappers from the U.S may catch you unawares!

Sharing such discoveries is also important because there are people who have spent a lot of time scanning, collating and finding the material that is useful for all of us! These are showing up as very specific Instagram accounts and Substacks, so our feeds can be interspersed with old table mats, crisp packets and so on. It’s not new for designers to utilise the past but I love that what ‘the past’ is has broadened and we’re celebrating a bigger variety of sources and their collectors.