Edmund Li RGD

What do you collect? I’ve always collected a lot of stuff (my whole life). But my favourite thing to collect is paper ephemera. I have more of this stuff than I would care to admit, haha. When did you start? I began collecting seriously while I was in design school, but since my early teens I’ve had a fondness for small things printed on paper.

Skip to main content I collect lanyards from conferences and events that I’ve been to, mostly communication arts related. Currently, I have them from 23 of the 26 RGD DesignThinkers conferences, starting with the 2002 edition. I also have least 20 lanyards from others conferences. They hang on a hook attached to a bookshelf in my studio and I see them every day. I started collecting the lanyards going back to the late 1990s.

Skip to main content What do you collect? I collect old type specimen books. I especially like the ones that feature hand lettering, sign painting or are published pre-1980. My collection began when my mother gave me a Speedball pen and nibs and a Speedball pen textbook. It’s a “How to hand letter” showing different styles of type that you can emulate by following the instructions on how to hold your pen and manoeuvre it to create the desired strokes.