Welcome to 「HEAVY」

Time for a quick getaway. After a heavy week filled with a bleak news cycle and humid weather, we're feeling the urge to log off, pack a suitcase, and drive...

Have you ever received a message that a past you sent your future self? 

Today we take you on a late spring lunch break stroll in our neighborhood. We'll be heading "up Third", as some might say, an allusion to Philadelphia's grid layout, here...

We caught up with Lisa Jungmin Lee, artist and Omoi Zakka Shop staffer, whose artwork is featured in our store postcard in collaboration with TRAVELER'S COMPANY USA.

Books about motherhood feel timely, but "The School for Good Mothers" feels tailor-made for the digital age. There's never been so much information about how to be "a good mom" before,...

Spring season in the shop has always been about lightening the mood a bit: taking a restorative bath, reminding ourselves to enjoy the time when things can be less urgent...

TRAVELER’S Company fans can now commemorate your visit to Omoi with our Philadelphia Partner Shop stamp.

Neal Stephenson's 1992 cult cyberpunk classic, Snow Crash, weaves virtual reality and robot dogs, heavily tracked gig workers and skateboard couriers, Sumerian myth and computer viruses, with an anime-cool cybersensibility,...

Office stationery well designed, STÁLOGY's line of notebooks, pens, and desk supplies come with their own philosophy printed right on the packaging. Their minimal products seem plain at first glance,...

Winter in Sokcho follows a young, unnamed biracial Korean woman living and working in a small hotel in Sokcho, a South Korean beach town approximately 60 km from the North Korean border. When...

"I’ve grown up surrounded by family heirlooms (lots of jewelry of course being Greek) and I think that this has given me a great sense of the potential emotional and...

When Omoi first opened in 2006, buying a Japanese planner online in the states was a literal impossibility! Year after year, we prided ourselves on importing a small and interesting...

As we enter the final stretch of the year we share the final Omoi Radio of 2021, with choice tracks from our store as well as hopes for a brilliant Year of the...

An ode to the humble t-shirt. Inspired by Haruki Murakami's t-shirt collection, we take a look at our own collections and what they might say about us.

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐔𝐬. It's the official shop birthday of our original Rittenhouse location at 1608 Pine Street, opened on this day in 2006. Today we're taking a moment to...

The leaves are falling, the days are getting shorter, and we're adding new songs to our store playlist. This fall edition of Omoi Radio focuses on the shift of the seasons,...

Beautiful sunny weather for exploring the city. Leisurely conversations with friends of the shop. The excitement of new stationery. The creative spirit stoked by simple exchanges of pen and paper....

It's spooky season. Here are five short stories to make the metaphorical hairs on your arms stand up.

It’s been a long time since we last had a meetup, but pandemic precautions are still necessary to operate safely. Since we can’t linger and party in our busy storefront,...

Where do you journal? For some, journaling is best done on the go: on the bus during the morning commute, in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, or in...

A public service announcement to please refrain from asking our Asian staff questions that you would not also ask other staff.

Part 3 of a Brief History covers ghosts, fire, and all the challenges of the last five years and the possibility to come.

Welcome to Omoi Radio, Summer 2021 edition. This season the sounds are mellow but also easy to tap your foot along to. August is always bit of a curious time...

"I have to be able to sit down at either table and open up my biggest notebook, and have space around that for my pencil case and my three beverages...

New to the shop this year is Sailor, a Japanese manufacturer of fine fountain pens and inks. We dive deep into the history of Sailor, the difference between styles and nibs, and ponder...

"When the tools I use resonate on a visceral level, the act of doing these things become more mindful and enjoyable." Today we feature the deskie of our logistics manager, April.

We return with Part 2 of our Brief History of Omoi. By 2012, Philadelphia indie retail seemed to be reassembling itself post-recession. Instagram was on the rise, small business e-commerce...

As we prepare to move our original store into our larger sister store in Old City, we take this opportunity to wax poetic about was it like when Omoi first...

Inspired by my mom likening the closing of the Pine store to sending a kid off to college: our 15-year-old is growing up, so I bring you PROM SONGS: OMOI...

We've very excited to get our many ducks in a row, and start making our Old City location a cozy haven for stationery fiends, cat people, and Baggu fanatics of...

The latest Omoi Radio features the best of what we've been bopping our heads to in the shop: a bit of 90s nostalgia that’s feeling fresh in our minds, alongside...

Love letters have a reputation for being old-fashioned, a relic from a time long ago when lovers were kept apart by great distances, political conflicts, and plagues (sound familiar?), and...

In times as confusing as ours it can seem silly, even pointless, to plan anything. Why bother, when so many things are changing? How do we plan for a future...

On making it through 2020 thanks to our favorite analog companions.

At the height of lockdown we found ourselves reading, journaling, sitting at the kitchen table and staring outside over tea and cookies. In between news doomscrolling, sleeping, coordinating on neighborhood...

Since the last meetup in June, our customers were asking when the next TRAVELER'S notebook meetup would be, and the 2020 planner items were scheduled to drop internationally in autumn....