You might all be familiar at this point with my monthly reviews of Papergang Mystery boxes, now it has already been one year of me subscribing to them and I think that’s worth a special review 😉 I actually already did a half years box and my verdict after half a year was actually that if those last boxes don’t manage to sweep me off my feet, I might have to cancel my subscription. Let’s see if they have managed to do that in the end or not!

One topic I get can out of the way already is the Brexit. It cost me a lot of nerves in the second half of 2021, because at first many of my boxes got lost or shipped back to the UK and when they were delivered in the end, I had to pay extra, A LOT. If you want to know more about why that was, you can read about it in my other post *here*. But gladly the team behind the Papergang subscription found a way to solve the problem, which they had not even caused in the first place. This is why I don’t want to consider it in my review at all. It happened this one time and it got fixed, it could have been communicated better with the customers, but all in all, they did their best 🙂

What I will be focusing on in this review are mostly the points I already criticized in my half-year review and if they did improve upon them or not. Let’s begin with my fixation on the boxes having or not having a theme to them 😛 When reviewing the Papergang next to the scrawler box from October 2021, I have to say that the Scrawler Box did fit my wishes way better because they had a clear goal in mind: Providing you with the utensils you need to do a certain project. And I loved that, they even had the artist from that box make a drawing with those exact things.
But with Papergang it’s not so easy, since it’s not really connected to art. But still, I feel like there could have been more of a theme in many boxes. Like for example focussing on a set to write letters to friends and trying to pick utensils that would help with that particular idea. Or focussing on notetaking and notetaking alone. What I observed after a year of Papergang is that they treat it more like a refill box for stationery you are going to use up over time anyways. In almost every box you will get a graphite pencil and sticky notes, but only one time you get one pencil case in 12 boxes, because that’s not something that gets used up. I would have loved for the things that I get in the boxes to feel less random.

Art is a big debate when it comes to Papergang in general. By working together with an artist for every new box and really only including exclusive items inspired by their designs, Papergang is standing out and I think it’s a brilliant idea. But it could be improved immensely when they would actually include their art. I know they don’t like to put artworks in because people will complain about it not being stationary and not having practical use. But I feel like trying to get the design from an artist on a pen, often does not work out which is why sometimes, I don’t think like the cooperation is really worth much. Not because the artists are not good, but because we don’t even really get anything from them. Most pencils are only in a colour matching the artwork on the front of the box, planners are often printed with their designs, but most other things are not. I just feel like that’s a bit of a waste and it could be such a cooler experience if we would actually get some art to keep or try to incorporate their designs better into the refills we get.

Customer Service was a negative point in my half years review. I admit that was mostly due to me being a bit annoyed at awaiting a cool compensation and only getting some random cards and randomness as you know, it’s not something I am fond of xD But all in all, I have to say the customer service is great, you get an answer pretty quickly and they try to help you solve your problem ASAP. I even got about half of the extra costs for the Brexit problem repaid and not with a coupon or a free box, but with the money no questions asked. If I should name one things that I loved the most about Papergang I would say it’s their customer service, even though I would have liked it even more to not rely on them so much aka not having had so much trouble with the boxes last year xD

Final Verdict
I have to say sadly there was not one box anymore which impressed me as much as the box from 2020 which I had bought previously to my subscription. I kinda took this one as a stand-in for the whole year of Papergangboxes in 2020 and I later even got some more from that particular year. Maybe this year the topics had just not been my personal favourite or the artist they choose to work with did not cater to my style. Sadly with most of the boxes from 2021 I was just bored which let me cancel my subscription or better not renew it for 2022. Though I will miss having to open and talk about a box each month, I am not quite sure yet if I will get a replacement or not. I would not say I will never again buy a Papergang box, since I have still hope they can improve and maybe, just maybe I will even have a year-long subscription again in the future. But for that to happen, they would have to wow me and we will have to see about that.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress