Bari Zaki

Bari Zaki Studio is a stationer and bookbinding supply shop in Chicago. In addition to a great selection of cards and paper, their bookbinding supplies are excellent and they run a series of instructional online classes teaching various bookbinding and box-making skills. I placed an order a while back for one of their mystery packs of “stationery joy” and a few other custom sets and supplies.

Bari Zaki packs their orders by hand and individually in such a lovely way, safely and with each part of the order wrapped in its own individual tissue and held together with various washi tape swatches and decorative string.

Their mystery pack of stationery joy included an array of plain and artistic greetings cards and note cards complete with envelopes.

Their custom desk set was a stack of fine paper in travel journal size topped with a leaf of Japanese design paper, held together with a bonder clip also decorated with a similarly-pattered paper and three pencils wrapped in the same.

I’ve seen this technique subsequently employed by other stationers who specialize in bookbinding and Japanese papers, including Montréal’s own Au papier japonais.

Speaking of Montréal, Bari Zaki is a reseller of St-Armand paper, and since these are difficult to find online and I want to support their resellers, I grabbed one fo the Canal pads.

I also grabbed a stack of art postcards and some new bookbinding tools to start working on my own projects.

Everything was topped with a lovely hand-written thank-you card. I hope to buy from this shop again before too long!