TL;DR: Point of View is a curated stationery shop on B2 of The Hyundai Seoul, in business at the same spot since the mall’s 2021 opening — a genuine rarity in a mall famous for cycling through pop-ups every few weeks. It’s a compact space compared to the brand’s Seongsu flagship, but the density of well-chosen pens, notebooks, ink, and desk objects makes it easy to lose 30 minutes here without meaning to.
The Hyundai Seoul is widely considered the fastest-rotating department store in Korean retail — from its earliest days, it treated pop-ups almost like permanent tenants, training shoppers to expect brands to cycle in and out every few weeks. Which makes the opposite case more notable: if a brand got a spot when the mall opened and is still standing there today, that means something. Surviving in a space built on constant novelty means keeping customers interested without ever letting the shelf go stale.
Point of View at The Hyundai Seoul is exactly that case. The stationery shop started on the 2nd floor of Seongsu’s Onion (오르에르) building, then became one of the first tenants when The Hyundai Seoul opened in February 2021 — and it’s held the same corner of the B2 Creative Ground for over five years since. I’d already visited the Seongsu flagship before, so I made time to see how this location compares.
The Basics: Still on B1 of The Hyundai Seoul
Location: B2 Creative Ground, The Hyundai Seoul — 108 Yeouidaero, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul
Hours: Weekdays 10:30 AM–8:00 PM, Fri–Sun 10:30 AM–8:30 PM (follows The Hyundai Seoul’s mall hours)
Parking: The Hyundai Seoul’s underground parking
The entrance leans on wood tones and low lighting — a deliberate departure from the usual bright, uniform lighting of a department store basement floor, closer to walking into an old study. The Seongsu flagship spreads across three floors (tool on 1F, scene on 2F, archive on 3F); this location compresses everything into one room. Smaller doesn’t mean less thought went in — if anything, it feels like the product selection was curated even more strictly to fit.
The floor plan is small enough to walk in five minutes flat. In practice, I stayed well over 30 minutes — simply because almost nothing here is arranged to be walked past without a second look. It doesn’t have the roomy, wander-freely feel of the Seongsu store, but that’s traded for real density.
Notebooks and diaries
Walk past the entrance and the notebook wall is the first thing that grabs you — books arranged vertically by color and material, closer to a bookstore’s shelving logic than a typical stationery display. Rather than simple brand groupings, everything runs in a color gradient, which makes it hard not to photograph.
Some brands here, like HighTide, are already well-known, but the display logic emphasizes the shop’s own eye for selection over brand recognition. Whatever’s on the shelf, filtering it through Point of View’s curation makes it read as part of one cohesive world — which feels like the whole job of a good concept store.
Desk memo pads are broken down by use case too — monthly, daily, to-do, and weekly formats, each with a small star-rating checkbox at the bottom. It reads less like office supplies and more like tools designed for recording your day.
Writing tools: pens, pencils, and erasers
Even buying a single pen comes with a suggestion for how to use it — clips that anchor a pen to a notebook, wire bookmark-and-marker combos, all grouped into their own corner. OHTO Japan’s wooden mechanical pencil lineup, running back to 1919, hangs here too.
Blackwing pencils come in white, matte red, and matte green, each standing in its own glass cup — 4,900 KRW each. The brand has near-cult status among writing-tool enthusiasts in the US, and it’s rare to find a Korean store stocking the full color range like this.
This sharpener drew the most attention — a Czech-made Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth piece shaped exactly like a vintage twin-lens reflex camera. It’s a fully functional sharpener, displayed like a miniature collectible — a good summary of this shop’s whole attitude toward stationery.
The eraser section isn’t an afterthought either — Spain’s Milan, Czech Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth, and other classic European brands are organized compartment by compartment with price tags, spanning a wide range from around 600 KRW up to 5,500 KRW.
The back of this eraser is stamped with its country of origin and the brand’s 1790 founding date. Even a simple eraser comes with an origin story attached — which says a lot about how this shop selects what makes the shelf: less about “how well does it erase” and more about “how much of a story does it carry.”
A drop of ink, and the copy that comes with it
This is where Point of View separates itself most clearly from a typical stationery store. The copywriting on the product cards is nothing like standard retail signage. The card for Pilot’s Iroshizuku ink reads:
“A droplet holding the color of nature” — the card opens with that line, moving through scenes like a hot summer, a quiet winter night, biting cold, and a green forest, framing each ink color as inspired by a specific moment. It even breaks down the etymology: iro means color, shizuku means droplet. It reads less like a color chart and more like a short piece of prose.
That difference — having copy like this versus not having it — matters more than it seems. A shop that labels the same ink “near-black green” versus one that calls it “a scene held entirely within nature” changes what a customer is willing to pay. Point of View’s reputation as a design-forward brand comes as much from writing like this as it does from the product selection itself.
Objects and desk pieces
Beyond stationery, there’s a dedicated corner for desk objects. Glass apple-shaped paperweights run 33,000 KRW in acrylic, and 39,000–46,000 KRW in marble depending on size. Judged purely on function, that’s a steep price for a paperweight — but seeing how much one of these would change the feel of a desk, it’s easy to understand the appeal.
Objects with a jellyfish sealed inside glass, hourglasses, softly tinted glass bottles — purely decorative pieces with no real utility make up a surprisingly large share of the shop.
This hourglass was worth a dedicated shot on its own. Objects like this are exactly why the space reads more like a lifestyle object shop than a stationery store. Point of View — both here and at the Seongsu flagship — describes itself not as a stationery brand but as a shop selling “tools and scenes.” Walking through, that framing feels less like marketing copy and more like the actual standard behind every product choice.
Eyewear and paper goods
A stationery shop selling glasses might seem odd at first, but there’s logic to it. These are round reading glasses from Ciqi, 79,000 KRW each. Framed as a tool for reading and writing, glasses fit naturally into the shop’s “tools for creating” category.
The bookmark corner stood out too — thin metal Book Darts from the American brand, alongside a fabric bookmark shaped like a milk carton, all treating the act of reading itself as something worth designing tools around.
The greeting card section mixes licensed Miffy cards with the shop’s own illustrated designs. Prices stay reasonable, making a card an easy add when wrapping a gift.
The premium line: a diary built to last five years
Tucked in a separate case toward the back is the Hobonichi 5-Year Techo — a single diary meant to hold five years of entries, from 2027 through 2031. The smaller size runs 68,000 KRW, the larger around 92,000 KRW. It’s handled carefully enough that a sign asks customers to check with staff before purchasing.
Whether nearly 100,000 KRW is reasonable for a single diary is going to land differently for everyone. But framed as a five-year commitment, that works out to under 20,000 KRW a year — a fair enough case for anyone willing to invest in something meant to stay with them a long time.
One letdown: the seasonal collaboration goods available at the Seongsu flagship (a recent Hello Kitty collab line was a big talking point there) weren’t available at this location. With less floor space to work with, it seems The Hyundai Seoul store sticks to the standing lineup, while limited editions and pop-up collabs go to Seongsu first. Understandable from an operations standpoint, but a letdown for anyone who only makes it to The Hyundai Seoul and misses the buzzed-about item as a result.
Holding the same spot, from opening day to now
The Hyundai Seoul has cycled through hundreds of pop-ups and brands in just over five years of operation — fast MD turnover is practically the mall’s identity. Against that backdrop, Point of View holding the exact same B2 Creative Ground spot since opening day carries more weight than it might first appear.
It’s tempting to assume a long-running department store tenant just means stable sales. But a trend-sensitive brand like this surviving five-plus years suggests something more active — continuously refreshing the shelf with new products, new copy, new objects, rather than coasting. The Iroshizuku copy, the apple objects, and the Ciqi glasses I saw here were all a different lineup from what I’d seen at the Seongsu store, which tells you this shop keeps moving rather than just holding its position.
A Few Notes Before You Browse
- Budget more time than the small footprint suggests — the density of interesting items means most visitors stay well past a quick five-minute walk-through.
- Read the product cards, not just the products — the copywriting is genuinely part of the experience here.
- Limited-edition collabs go to the Seongsu flagship first — if a specific seasonal item is the goal, check there before assuming The Hyundai Seoul location has it.
- The Hobonichi 5-Year Techo is kept behind the counter — ask staff if you want a closer look.
FAQ
Q: How does this location compare to the Seongsu flagship?
A: It’s far more compact — one room instead of three floors — but the selection is tightly curated rather than thin, and some products differ from what’s on offer in Seongsu.
Q: Is this good for gift shopping?
A: Yes — greeting cards, desk objects, and pens all sit at approachable price points for gifting, alongside pricier premium pieces like the Hobonichi diary.
Q: Do they carry limited-edition collaborations?
A: Generally not at this location — those tend to launch at the Seongsu flagship first.
Q: Is there parking?
A: Yes, through The Hyundai Seoul’s underground parking.
Q: Is this a good spot for non-stationery lovers too?
A: Yes — even if you’re not into pens and notebooks specifically, it’s a solid reference point for anyone interested in product curation or copywriting as a craft.
Worth the Visit?
It’s not the leisurely, three-floor browsing experience the Seongsu flagship offers, but for the most densely curated stationery experience available in a short window in Yeouido, Point of View at The Hyundai Seoul is more than enough on its own.