Eight places for stationery, books, gifts and things you probably weren't planning to bring home.
Ofr Seoul
Black Heart Pencil
Seoul is very good at making you buy things you didn't know you needed.
A pencil. A postcard. A roll of tape. A photography book you can't read. A Kodak windbreaker. Something small and beautifully designed whose purpose becomes increasingly difficult to explain once you get home.
Some of our favorite shopping in Seoul happens in places that are destinations in their own right: shops where the displays are considered, the packaging is almost too good to open and browsing is half the reason for going.
These aren't necessarily the biggest shops in the city, or a definitive list of the best. They're simply eight places that stayed with us long after we made it home.
Black Heart Pencil
Yeonnam-dong
Yes, this is an entire store devoted to pencils.
Black Heart Pencil Shop is tiny, hard to find, wonderfully niche and filled with pencils collected from around the world: new ones, old ones, familiar brands and plenty we'd never seen before.
They're lined up in boxes and jars, turning something as ordinary as a pencil into a collection of tiny pieces of graphic design. Different typefaces, paint colors, logos, erasers and packaging suddenly become surprisingly interesting when there are hundreds of them together.
There are sharpeners, erasers and other writing tools too, but the pencils are why you come.
We love stores that are completely committed to one very specific thing. Seoul has quite a few of them. This might be one of the best.
LOOK FOR: Vintage and unusual pencils - the more obscure, the better.
GO: South Korea, Seoul, Mapo-gu, Yeonnam-dong, Yeonhui-ro, 47 3층
Kodak
Various locations
Kodak is alive and well in South Korea, just not quite in the way you might expect.
The old photography brand has been turned into a full fashion and lifestyle line here, with standalone shops selling jackets, sweatshirts, hats, bags and accessories inspired by Kodak's film heritage. There are flashes of the familiar yellow and red everywhere, old film graphics and plenty of references photographers will recognize.
It's fun, nostalgic and very Korean at the same time.
We stop whenever we come across one and somehow there is always something we haven't seen before. We've found shops in Seongsu and Myeongdong, along with locations inside some of Seoul's department stores.
For people who travel with far too many cameras, this one was probably inevitable.
LOOK FOR: The photography-inspired pieces you won't commonly see back home.
GO: Multiple Seoul locations, including Seongsu, Myeongdong and department-store locations.
Zero Space
mindthings
Point of View
Seongsu
Point of View is one of the best stationery stores we've been to anywhere.
The Seongsu flagship takes up three floors, each filled with the kinds of things that make stationery people lose all sense of restraint: Japanese pens, beautiful notebooks, pencils, paper, stamps, clips, scissors and tools we didn't know existed until we suddenly needed one.
But the store itself is half the reason to go. Everything is arranged with an almost obsessive attention to detail. A row of pencils somehow becomes something you want to photograph. Even the packaging is worth looking at.
If you're going to Seongsu, put this one on the list.
LOOK FOR: Writing tools and the small, wonderfully specific objects you didn't come in for.
GO: 18 Yeonmujang-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Zero Space
Mangwon-dong
Zero Space is part design studio, part shop, with a particular love for the visual language of Seoul. Its shelves are filled with posters, postcards, stationery and small objects that turn familiar pieces of the city into clean, graphic illustrations.
There’s a distinctly Korean point of view here but it’s subtle. Rather than obvious souvenirs, you’ll find beautifully designed objects that happen to capture something about Seoul. The work is colorful and playful, with the kind of simple graphic style that makes even an ordinary streetscape or neighborhood landmark feel worth putting on the wall.
We especially love the prints and postcards. They’re an easy way to bring home a visual memory of the city without bringing home something that feels like it came from a souvenir shop.
Zero Space is small, but there’s a lot to look through. It’s particularly worth seeking out if you love illustration, typography, graphic design or simply finding objects that remind you of a place in a less obvious way.
LOOK FOR: Seoul-inspired prints and postcards, graphic stationery and illustrations of familiar pieces of the city.
GO: 398-2 Mangwon-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Take My Yellow
Seochon
Take My Yellow is bright, playful and a little weird, with shelves full of colorful objects, character goods, stationery and things whose purpose isn't always immediately obvious. That's exactly why we like it.
This is definitely not minimalist Seoul design. It's the other side of the city's retail personality: funny, colorful and completely committed to making ordinary things more interesting than they need to be.
It's the kind of shop where we end up pointing things out to each other every few feet and those are usually our favorite shops.
LOOK FOR: Vintage goods and unique finds
GO: South Korea, Seoul, Jongno District, Pirundae-ro, 9-2 4층
Ofr Seoul
Seochon
Ofr Seoul is tiny. Really tiny. There's essentially one narrow aisle, with books and magazines packed along the walls and just enough room to squeeze past whoever else is browsing.
But there's a lot packed into that little space.
Ofr started as an independent bookstore in Paris and the Seoul shop carries a tightly edited mix of art, photography, fashion and design books and magazines, including international titles and older issues that can be surprisingly hard to find. There are also a few bags, jewelry and other objects mixed in, but we come for the books.
It's exactly the kind of shop we love finding when we travel: small, specific and full of things we don't see everywhere else.
And being tucked into Seochon only makes it better. Pair it with Allwrite and spend the rest of the afternoon wandering the neighborhood.
LOOK FOR: Books and branded merch
GO: 9-4 Jahamun-ro 10-gil, Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea
Allwrite
Seochon
Allwrite is a love letter to handwriting.
The small Seochon shop is filled with pens, pencils, notebooks, postcards, stamps and paper goods, but what makes it special is how personal everything feels. This isn't a giant stationery store with every possible option. It feels like someone has selected each thing because they genuinely love writing.
Allwrite sits in Seochon, an older neighborhood just west of Gyeongbokgung where small shops and cafés are tucked among narrow streets and traditional houses. It's exactly the sort of place where buying a postcard and actually sitting down to write it suddenly seems like a very good idea.
LOOK FOR: Notebooks, washi tape, pens
GO: 102번지 Chebu-dong, Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea
mindthings
Euljiro
mindthings is proof that Seoul can make even the smallest everyday object feel worth paying attention to.
The shop is full of stationery and small design objects. The kind of things you pick up because of an interesting shape, clever detail or particularly good piece of packaging.
There's a simplicity to a lot of it but nothing feels boring.
We especially love shops like this when we're traveling because the things you bring home don't have to scream souvenir. Sometimes it's a notebook, a pen or some tiny object sitting on your desk months later that takes you right back to a place. mindthings is very good for those things.
LOOK FOR: greeting cards, decor
GO: 32-1 Supyo-ro, Jung District, Seoul, South Korea
A few notes before you go
Don't try to turn these into a shopping checklist. Seoul is enormous, and one of the best parts of finding these places is everything else you run into along the way. Save them to your map and group them with the neighborhoods you're already exploring.
In Seongsu: Point of View + Kodak
Around Hongdae and Yeonnam-dong: Sangsangmadang + Black Heart Pencil
In Seochon: Allwrite + Take My Yellow + Ofr
Then leave some empty space between them.
There will almost certainly be another shop you weren't planning to find.