Stationery & Paper Goods

Designer and illustrator Tamsin Richardson founded Braw Paper Co in 2018, starting with paper goods run out of a home studio in Fremantle. The work is hand-painted mixed-media illustration of Australian native birds, flowers, marine life and small creatures, applied across cards, journals, art prints, enamel pins and ceramic coasters. The coasters are hand-printed on site. The studio shop on South Street in Hilton is attached to the working studio, where staff can talk through the design and printing processes.

An online stationery shop run by Elizabeth, who both makes and gathers pens, pencils, notebooks, journals, planners, inks and washi tape from local and international makers. The range spans dozens of brands, alongside stickers, sticky notes and wrapping supplies. Curated edits group the stock by mood, from vintage style and minimalist to soft florals and bold colour.

A stationery and lifestyle shop on Swanston Street, stocked with fountain pens, inks and refills from makers such as LAMY, Kaweco and Caran d'Ache, alongside notebooks, planners and journals. The range extends to art and desk tools, bags and water bottles, candles, homewares and greeting cards. There's an in-house line under Studio Milligram, plus a personalisation service and gift wrapping.

Ann Street shop stocking stickers, journals and paper supplies from independent artists alongside vintage and salvaged finds. The range runs from weatherproof vinyl stickers and washi tape to journal kits with names like Dark Academia and Silly Goose — plus a Japanese stationery section for those who know what they're looking for.

A stationery shop trading in personalised and social correspondence, envelopes, fountain pens and notebooks. Italian leather journals anchor the range, from the Venezia in chocolate, black and red to the refillable Amalfi in dark green. Custom work sits alongside gift wraps, with writing sets and notecards rounding out the shelves for those who still put pen to paper.

On Brunswick Street, a stretch better known these days for cafes and vintage clothing than specialist retail, a family-owned stationery shop has held the same ground since 1989. The stock runs deep rather than wide: hardcover and stitched journals, fountain pens and dip pens alongside fineliners, handmade paper including sheets crafted from Himalayan lokta bark, and a wax-sealing counter with stamps, sticks and kits for anyone still finishing a letter properly. A personalisation service debosses initials by hand in the shop's own Melbourne studio, the kind of service that assumes customers want an object made specifically for them rather than picked off a shelf. Photo albums and archival storage sit alongside the notebooks, a nod to a customer base that still prints pictures and wants somewhere considered to keep them. The shop runs its own workshop program and collaborates with artists and archives on limited paper stock, treating stationery as a craft with its own suppliers and techniques rather than a commodity category to be raced to the bottom on price. Thirty-five years on, it still operates from the one Fitzroy address, evidence that a shop built around slow, tactile objects can hold its ground against digital everything.