Issue07 : 07 July 2014

Chanchalad Khanjanawong, the lead designer of Grey Ray

Energy crisis and waste are the undeniable bi-products of rapid consumerism. Grey Ray Stationery questions this, and puts an eco-friendly ideal into action.

From the automobile industry to an ordinary 2B pencil, all products need both natural resources and energy. However, as Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis demonstrated, our demand for more energy is not necessarily safe. The 2011 catastrophe also marked the trigger for Thailand’s premier stationery design brand – Grey Ray Stationery ­– to create products that were less wasteful on the planet’s depleting natural resources.

"If my generation doesn't do it now, then who will start?" asks Chanchalad Khanjanawong, the founder, managing and creative director of Grey Ray Stationery.

With 16 years’ experience as an art teacher at his own artHOUSE academy and a background in decorative art, Khanjanawong had observed his students' wasteful behaviour while using their art tools.

"I saw how art students sharpen their 8B pencils unnecessarily long, and then they just break and waste the soft pencil lead without much thought about this,” he explains.

EE Defender pencil cap, a useful piece of stationery

Khanjanawong set about discovering a more efficient way to use less for more. Grey Ray – which is a pun on the Thai for disobey which has the same sound – has revamped stationery into products that will last a long time. "We do research and ask manufacturers to change their traditional production,” he says. “We look for the best possible way to reduce any unnecessary usage.”

The products speak volumes for Grey Ray's brand concept and motto – less is more and wasting nothing at all. For example, Grey Ray's EE Defender pencil cap, which won both a DEmark Award and Japan's Good Design Award in 2013, has wording that reminds drawing students to sharpen their fragile pencil only to 3.8cm, rather than a longer length that is liable to snap. Another example is Grey Ray's new +2CM Pencil which helps reduce the use of graphite by replacing the final two centimeters of the pencil – that has always been thrown away as rubbish since the history of the pencil began – with a hole.

+2CM Pencil. As you can see, they use lesser graphite.

With eight vintage colours and a simple yet smart design that has more than a dash of the Japanese, Grey Ray's wide range of affordable art tools are meant for niche markets especially within Thailand. Yet, everyone is welcomed to use the products and all industries are invited to implement its concept of carrying out research and creating new knowledge for the future generations of Thailand.

Khanjanawong aims for Grey Ray Stationery to become a Thai brand about of which its people are rightly proud. "I want to make something that can change the world, something that can improve Thai people's quality of life in the long term,” he says. “Imagine PVC-free stationery for young elementary school kids. That's one thing which will be beneficial for a life time."

For more information, visit www.GREY-RAY.com.

Words by Phraewphan Puangkasem