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Viviani Wang has a multi-cultural background, born in Brazil and raised in Shanghai, China. She is an international student studying Interior Architectural Design in San Diego and has studied in China, Brazil, Italy, and the U.S. All of these incredible cultural travel and learning experiences has shaped who she is today.
Viviani loves to travel and capture moments through photography. Though she does not consider herself a photographer, she has a self-confessed obsession with the images she captures. It’s as if she can see the photograph prior to taking it and is willing to wait for as long as it takes to capture the moment perfectly. When she travels alone she will even ask fellow tourists to take pictures for her until the picture turns out exactly as she has imagined.
Last year Viviani went to Milan, Italy to study for three months. She was able to fully take advantage of the travel, visiting Italy (Florence, Rome, Venice, Cinque Terre, Milan, Pisa, and Lake Como), France (Paris), London (UK), and Spain (Barcelona and Granada). During her adventures, she lived in AirBnB’s, which she loved. Each place revealed a different culture and design approach.
A little fun fact is that Viviani must eat fast-food (like KFC or McDonald’s) at least once when she is traveling because they each have a unique taste from one country to another. The taste has been integrated with different cultures. She enjoys trying different versions of the food, to see the unique packaging and interior of the restaurants.
Viviani has been writing down things since she was very young, she always kept a diary as a girl. Though her early diaries now seem somewhat naive to her, the practice of writing shaped her habits and made journaling and capturing memories a key part of her life. She has not been drawn to using technology to write things down and feels that perhaps her love for stationery, when she was very young, is a key reason. She prefers the tactile act of touching paper vs. a digital screen.
While she likes to look forward to the future, her memories are more meaningful to her. When she holds a pen to write, she collects the little things that create the memory and she finds putting them together in a notebook incredibly inspiring. When others flip through her notebooks (as they often do), they are also inspired and enforce the fact that in the future, Viviani will be very thankful she has captured so many wonderful moments of her life.
“Of course my journal is half angel and half evil. I share all the good and bad things with it.”
She likes her Travelers Notebook a lot because it is its own system. She finds it very flexible and DIYable. Viviani incorporates brush lettering, calligraphy, sketches, and watercolors into her TN. It goes with her everywhere.
Her Travelers Notebook is used for photos and “garbage” collecting. When she is out and about, she collects all the artifacts that she can get: business cards, information brochures, even a to-go coffee cup if it has a nice graphic design. It is all intended to be incorporated into her journaling to memorialize her adventures and experiences. If she’s forgotten to collect something, her friends will pick it up and put it in her bag for her – helping her remember her “garbage”.
Her analogue system is all about journaling. She uses her Hobinichi to write down bullet points of the things that happened in her day, versus scrapbooking/journaling when she is on short trips. She uses the Midori MD Diary for expanded writing, not necessarily daily writing, but capturing things when she really needs to talk to herself or write down important things.
Viviani has an ongoing love for fountain pens and all kinds of stationery. Some of her favorite stationery/analogue brands are The Superior Labor, MT, Yohaku, Travelers Notebook, Hobinichi, Midori, Classiky, and Baum-kuchen.
We are so thankful to have Viviani in our local analogue community. Viviani has a really cheerful personality and her journals exude passion for traveling and architecture. Every time we see her at BK shop/studio, she always shares her new adventures, which often gives the BK team the itch to explore the new places.
We are so inspired by how she lives her life with passion and has so much fun during the journey!
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Your journaling set up and style and mine are so similar. If only i could have gone all the places you have been. Great photos.
Really cute notebook, great pics, & she seems very creative! Also very inspiring….thanks for sharing!